Back from a 9 month vacation

Posted by Kip Earlywine

While Rob ships off to Jamaica, I’m coming back from a vacation of a different sort.  The “being lazy and making excuses to not post anything” type.  Admittedly its for a reason I’m sure many of you can relate to- that this is a pretty brutal offseason so far.  No free agency or trades before the draft, meaning that team’s needs are probably as undefined as we’ve ever seen, coupled with some fairly lousy draft capital owned by our beloved Seahawks.

Seahawks Draft Blog has really grown, and I haven’t posted in a long time:  so I’m probably a new name to many of you.  You might remember the Alex Gibbs piece I did, or maybe my 40 something odd part series of player of the day in which I previewed potential players Seattle might target in rounds 1 and 2, guys like Derrick Morgan, Trent Williams, Montario Hardesty, and so forth.

Rob has done an amazing job with this site and that’s why I’m here- to help promote what I think is an excellent source for Seahawks/draft news and analysis.  I came to know Rob online from his posting as TheEnglishSeahawk at scout’s Seahawks site back when Doug Farrar ran it.  Though I’ve never met Rob or even so much as talked to him on the phone, I consider him a friend and if there is anything I can do to promote his site I’ll gladly do it.

Its a shame the draft is so close and my ability to preview the draft is now pretty limited, but hey- we still have a potential lock out season, free agency and trades to be terrified about!  Hurray!

In general, I hope to take an in depth look at the “big story” of this draft, its QB class.  After that, I’m going to dive into Seattle’s stated intention of rebuilding the lines, if they can really do it and how they would go about it.  I’ll also offer some 2nd opinions on Rob’s analysis- which is probably my biggest regret from last year (not doing that).  Of the 40 something players I previewed last year, only 1 (!) was selected by Seattle (Earl Thomas).  Why?  Because I avoided talking about Russell Okung and Golden Tate.  Rob and Kyle held fairly strong and mostly negative opinions of Okung, seeing him as a late 1st rounder.  I always liked Okung and had him as my top tackle throughout the draft, but I didn’t want to rock the boat too much as I was a new contributor last year.  I kept my opinions to myself, although I did like Okung enough to successfully mock him to the Seahawks at #6 the day before it actually happened.  Similarly, I avoided talking about Golden Tate because Kyle Rota had expressed so much negativity about him, and I won’t kid myself into thinking I know more about evaluating WR than he does (and from what we’ve seen so far, I think he was right).

Well anyway, its great to be back.  I love how there is a new synergy in the Seahawks “blogosphere” between Rob Stanton, Brandon Adams, and Dan Kelly, three excellent writers.  This is how it should be.  I can’t wait to get started and be a part of it.