In our Seattle Seahawks postgame space, you’ve grown to expect Cigar Thoughts, with words by Jacson Bevens. Ain’t gonna happen anymore. He walked away after 13 years and someone else got the gig. What? This is like expecting Ken Griffey Jr. but getting Mike Cameron instead. Or waiting for Russell Okung to fill Walter Jones’ cleats, while fully recognizing the impossibility of the demand.
Those two replacements were pretty damn good, even. Objectively, their biggest fault was having to follow a legend.
A thankless job if there ever was one.
Well, if someone must do the same at Field Gulls, I volunteer. It’s not like the Seahawks can give up and field only four offensive linemen — even though that’s exactly how the last 15 years have felt. (Oh snap?)
Regardless of how monumental the task appears, I’m at peace. Because, come on, if the goal is to be as cool as the cigar-chomping, star-interviewing, bad-golf-playing, idiom-coining lawn care guru who roamed these halls, that goal is dumb. Not doable. No way, Charbonnet. Total change of scenery is in order. Dominican smokes are now dad jokes. Shots of whiskey? Lots of whimsy.
So, an era ends. Eras do that. And sometimes it’s welcome. Other times it kinda sucks because the predecessor left a Hall of Fame resume and John Schneider/Mookie doesn’t draft gold jackets every year anymore.
To accelerate the transition, our first Words of Prey postgame column has arrived ahead of Week 1. It recaps the Seahawks’ offseason as a whole. Think of it as an exposition of themes, which will surely be drudged back up in October when the foreseeable consequences of trading away their field-tilting skill players hit home. One side of the ball might be sitting ducks, but not all is lost: the other side has sharpened its talons into razor blades.
DEFENSE
Save for a Sharknado Armageddon of injuries hitting the V-Mac, there is no universe in which the Seattle defense takes a step back in 2025. They finished the year on a heater, gained another offseason in Mike Macdonald’s system, and lost no contributors. If anything, they will bring even more bazookas to their weekly knife fight.
- Healthy Uchenna Nwosu alongside wily DeMarcus Lawrence (both in heavy rotation)
- further maturation for Byron Murphy and Tyrice Knight and other front seven members
- the continued revelations that are Josh Jobe and Coby Bryant
- whatever level of disemboweler Nick Emmanwori is fated to become behind Julian Love’s leadership
- plus, of course, the two W’s, Riq Woolen and Devon Witherspoon, who on their own are worth two W’s in the ledger.
Ten years ago I called the LOB a band of quarterbackivores. (A shrewd reader suggested “cubiavores.”) Macdonald’s crew is not them. Who could be? Instead he’s assembled a battalion of shapeshifters, a relentless amoebic infection that sickens its victim until you look up and see the Seahawks have won yet another 13-10 duel. Count on this: the Seahawks D is gonna pall-bear the offense to victory more than once.
OH, THE OFFENSE
Your level of optimism may depend on how much you believe in Klint Kubiak’s scheme (ehh), Sam Darnold’s processing (ehhhhh), and progress on the offensive line (not enough space on the internet to fit all the h’s). My skepticism grows by the week. Optimism, poof. Prove me wrong, Seahawks? Please?
Look. As many questions as the defense doesn’t have, the offense has. They don’t possess a legitimate second receiving threat and that means safeties can shade to JSN. They don’t feature a game-breaking tight end unless you count Elijah Arroyo, and if that comes to pass it won’t be in 2025, because rookies.
They don’t have a solidified interior line. They have a rookie, a new center, and a right guard who won the job by default. They maybe don’t even have a right tackle, depending on health. Marking Abe Lucas down for 17 games? Everyone will take the under without the post even being sponsored by FanDuel.
The quarterback doesn’t have chemistry with his pass-catchers, or a track record of success. You’d like at least one of those components and really need both to score consistently.
The WR room is one one and four fours. At least the running backs are above average and potentially great. Which won’t matter if nobody can get open or block.
When your offense needs five coin flips in a row to come up heads, or five guys to turn in career years, or five faces unfamiliar with each other to act in familiarity learned over multiple seasons, your offense isn’t ready to contend. The path to any playoff berth rests on the defense reaching its promise right away.
The Seahawks have had the offseason a soon-to-be 8-9 or 9-8 team has. Some improvements, some big departures, and a lot of wishful thinking that their tinkering turns into alchemy. And praying (preying) for good health. Without which they’re probably on the outside looking in come postseason time.
THERE YOU GO
With the stage set, I’ll attempt to sign off. In the place of a local legend, I promise to be a bubbling cauldron of annoying, right, wrong, clever, passionate, unhinged, fair, measured, over-the-top and true to myself. Distilled — a spirits pun! — into six words, I promise to not. be. boring. The guy before me used to say that about Seahawks teams. He still says it, but he used to, too. The cardinal* sin any sports team can commit isn’t to be bad. It’s to be boring. Worst they can do is bore us. Worse than losing 14 games. Nothing is less forgivable than a snoozefest factory.
*this word is not chosen by accident
So here’s to an exciting year, replete with bumps and bruises and setbacks but also exhilaration conjured ex nihilo. And fireworks. And victory celebrations in this space specifically. Together. Together’s better. ‘Cause in the end it’s not about me and how fancy any one writer can word. It’s not about you and how much enjoyment you derive from clicking on this site wayyy too often in any given month of the year. And it’s not even strictly about the Seahawks, although they do play a leading role.
It’s about all of us, every party in attendance joining in a bittersweet symphony of fanhood. One that caroms back and forth between perfect cacophony and perfect harmony. As many times as desired.
If the Hawks are to go, let us go with them.
