Rainy Days and Coffee: A Seattle Seahawks Franchise

[Stout]

The 2010 Seattle Seahawks will go down in history for their infamous upset of the defending champion New Orleans Saints in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. Led by Veteran QB Matt Hassleback, mid season acquisition Marshawn Lynch, hard hitting linebacker Lofa Tatupu, and former USC Coach Pete Carroll, they won their division at 7-9, going up against the previous season's Super Bowl Champion Saints. Many, if not all, analysts picked the Saints to dominate the Seahawks and move onto Chicago to face the Bears. Having home field advantage on their side, however, the Seahawks stunned the Saints with a 41-36 victory, led by Lynch's huge "beast mode" run in the late 4th quarter. Their Cinderella season would end the following week though, as Chicago beat them in the divisional round 35-24. Now, the rebuilding Seahawks look to take home the NFC West title again, and possibly even more.

Franchise Rules: (Props to Mudcat for this layout)
Game: Madden 12
Platform: XBOX 360
Play Style: Regular
Quarter Length: 12 min. as long as 20 sec. runoff is locked in.
Rosters: Latest Update
Draft Classes: PastaPadre's
Sliders: Mr. Hurricaine's All-Madden Sliders

I will be playing every game including pre-season and write ups will follow. This is my first franchise so all feedback and constructive criticism would be great. Hope to make Seattle a year in and year out contender. And I'm bringing this over from a couple other sites, so I'm just going to post everything from there at once to catch people up.

[Stout]

Super Bowl Champions 2011-

[Stout]

Award Winners 2011-

2011: MVP
OROY:
DROY:
OPOY
DPOY
COTY (Coach of the year)

[Stout]

Draft Results

2011 Draft:


First round (No. 25) – James Carpenter, OT, Alabama
Third round (No. 75) – John Moffitt, OG, Wisconsin
Fourth round (No. 99) – K.J. Wright, OLB, Mississippi State
Fourth round (No. 107) – Kris Durham, WR, Georgia
Fifth round (No. 154) – Richard Sherman, CB, Stanford
Fifth round (No. 156) – Mark Legree, FS, Appalachian State
Sixth round (No. 173) – Byron Maxwell, CB, Clemson
Seventh round (No. 205) – Lazarius Levingston, DE, LSU
Seventh round (No. 242) – Malcolm Smith, LB, USC

[Stout]

Burning Question One: Who Will Start At Quarterback?
Coach Carroll yet to declare starter.
By Danny O'Neil, Seattle Times

Seattle, Washington - The first day of NFL Training Camp is always a exciting one. You properly get to see all the rookies and new players chatting it up with the veterans, the running backs taking hand offs and running long distances, and reporters trying to pry as much information as they can out of the coaching staff. That was exactly what happened at training camp today, because as soon as Pete Carroll stepped up to the podium to deliver his first official press conference of the year, he was assualted with questions about who his Quarterback will be this season: Tavaris Jackson or Charlie Whitehurst. Carroll put it in the shortest of terms, but in the most simplest, "Both of our QB's have the potential to start, and we will know by the end of the pre-season who will be our starting Quarterback come week 1" However, many media members and sources inside the Seahawks organization believe that Jackson will be the starter, due to "more mobility and a stronger arm". However, Whitehurst had a very nice play that had everyone who saw it speechless, when he replicated Eli Manning's play against the Patriots pretty much by dodging a tackle and breaking another one, than firing it down field to Golden Tate, who than ran it in for the score. Only time will tell who will be the starter, but barring a injury, Jackson will be starting the first pre-season game against the Chargers, and it will be determined later on this week how much he will play. All we know right now is that from the looks of practice today, this Seattle team had the potential to go a long way this season, especially in a questionable NFC West.

[Stout]

Burning Question 2: How will Golden Tate peform?
2nd Year Man looks to make heads turn this season
Danny O'Neil, Seattle Times

Seattle, Washington - In April of 2010, when Roger Goodell announced the Seahawks 2nd round draft pick, Radio City Music Hall was shaking the noise was so loud. Golden Tate, a junior from Notre Dame, had been selected by the Seahawks, and many people thought of this as a sleeper. Tate had broken all of Notre Dame's major receiving records, and he had won the Fred Biletnikoff Award for being the best receiver in College Football. However, Tate did not make much of a presence last year, aside from him breaking into a donut shop in June of 2010. Tate only had 21 receptions and no touchdowns, although he did have a 63 yard return at one point. For the Seahawks to contend, they will need their receivers to have big production levels, and Tate will need to step up and show that he was worth the second round pick used on him. However, Tate has found help from a unlikely source, as he revealed in a brief Q&A with reporters after morning practice. When he was asked what he did in the offseason to get prepared for this season, he responded that he and close friend Victor Cruz of the Giants worked out with future Hall of Famer Randy Moss in Miami. Tate's official statement was "Me and Victor Cruz, we worked out with Randy [Moss] this past offseason at his summer home in Miami. He invited us down and helped us work on our skills. It was really exciting to work with someone like Randy because he obivously is a future hall of famer and I hope that if he ever plays again, that he decides to come to Seattle." Golden Tate will not start in the opener, but he will get "a good number of playing time" according to Coach Carroll. Only time will tell if Seattle made a good pick taking Tate, or if it will go down as a wasted draft spot.

[Stout]

Burning Question Three: Can Earl Thomas replicate his strong rookie season?
2nd Year man out of Texas looks to carry defense again
Danny O'Neil, Seattle Times

Seattle, Washington - Although the Seahawks only ranked 27th in overall defense, one of their few bright spots on defense was rookie defensive back Earl Thomas, their first round draft pick out of Texas. Thomas made his presence made early, as in Week 3 he intercepted 2 passes from Phillip Rivers, on their way to a upset over the heavily favored Chargers. Thomas finished with 76 tackles,1 forced fumble and 5 interceptions, and his role on the team vaulted them into the playoffs. With Lofa Tatupu's return to the team questionable, Earl Thomas is going to have to lead this defense, and he is going to have to help make this defense better. Say what you want about being in the NFC West, but defense wins championships, and with a offense that was inconsistent last year, the Seahawks will need to play great defense to contend. Also, many players who have had great rookie season will end up falling victim to the "Sophmore Slump". But in my opinion, look for Thomas and Marcus Trufant to make the Pro Bowl, because this defense is looking like a top 10 defense from looking at them in practice so far.

[Stout]

Coach Carroll looks on at practice this afternoon

Burning Question Four: How will the lockout affect the Seahawks in the long run?
Late start to camp and offseason activities could end up hurting teams
Danny O'Neil, Seattle Times

Seattle, Washington - One of the hot topics (yeah I know, hot topics and burning questions, no cocindience there) this offseason has been how will the 2011 NFL lockout affect teams. You have to remember that literally, stadiums and team facilities were locked out, which ended up preventing injured players from working with team doctors and medical staff. Lofa Tatupu, a veteran who has had a couple big injuries in the past couple seasons, spoke out about this in a interview with ESPN710 Seattle earlier today. When he was asked by hosts Bob Stelton and Dave Grosby about how he spent his lockout, Tatupu responded, "Frustrated and angry. The fact that I wasn't able to get proper help from the Seahawks organization during this time was frustrating and upsetting. Many other players in the league feel that way because after the season ends, a lot of players will take the first month after their season ends to spend time with their families, relax, work out a little bit all that stuff. Than guys head into team facilities and see the training staffs and get medical help or whatever. But because of the lockout, we couldn't do that, or risk being fined. Very upsetting" The lockout also means that due to a late start of camp, peformances could be down from teams early on due to the lack of time that teams were able to put in to work in new players and new plays. The Seahawks, who were forced to open up their training camp a bit later than most teams, will have to try their best to make up for the lost time. Football players and fans all across the world can only hope that even though there was a lockout, this season will still be a great one.