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With the new year, it is time for New Years resolutions. The Seattle Seahawks need to resolve to be better in a few key ways.
Tonight we say goodbye to a disappointing 2016 and ring in a 2017 with hopes of a another Super Bowl title. New Years is a time for resolutions, and I have three resolutions the Seattle Seahawks should make for 2017.
Don’t let their $87.6 million quarterback be killed because of a trash heap of an offensive line
For the last 2 seasons, the Seahawks have been giving Russell Wilson the David Carr treatment. They’ve been letting their franchise QB get destroyed by sticking him behind an absolutely terrible offensive line.
Because of that, Wilson has been dealing with some nasty injuries this season. His mechanics are starting to fall apart, leading to accuracy problems.
If the Seahawks aren’t careful they’re going to break Wilson. If the bad mechanics from this season become permanent, then he’ll never again be the guy we saw in the second half of 2015.
The best thing that the Seahawks can do in 2017 is provide him with competent offensive line. If Wilson begins to have confidence of his protection, he isn’t likely to have his bad mechanics become bad habits.
Make “Always Compete” apply to everyone
Jermaine Kearse has been one of the worst WRs in the NFL this season, and yet he’s still the team’s No. 2 wideout. Jeremy Lane has been a massive disappointment. Bradley Sowell played meaningful snaps this season.
In all of those cases, the Seahawks had other options, but chose not to use them. While some players, like Christine Michael and J’Marcus Webb, are benched and then released for poor play, others get a free ride.
The best players need to play. Accountability needs to apply to everyone.
This should also be true for coaches. For some reason Tom Cable has become Seattle’s Jeff Fisher. No matter how much his players underperform, he remains untouchable for some completely unknown reason.
That needs to change in 2017 for the Seahawks to reach their potential and bring home another Super Bowl.
Don’t sacrifice special teams for a few pennies
Both kicker Steven Hauschka and punter Jon Ryan are having down years. This isn’t a coincidence that this is happening at the same time for both players.
The Seahawks decided save about $200,000 in cap space by replacing long snapper Clint Gresham with Nolan Freese. The results haven’t been good by any stretch of the imagination.
Reese has been responsible for bad snap after bad snap on special teams all year. The tiny amount of cap room wasn’t worth the massive dropped in special teams production.
For 2017, they need to learn from this mistake and get a long snapper that can consistently put the ball on target. It doesn’t have to be Gresh, but it does need to be someone who can do that job as well as he did it.
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