All the shouting on the earth can’t resurrect the 2010s period’s vibrancy, of which Carroll, linebacker Bobby Wagner and quarterback Russell Wilson are the final three tradition carriers. And with the unhappiness that’s been signaled by Wilson, who voiced his displeasure with the offense earlier than the season started, and the group proprietor Jody Allen, who is claimed to be more and more illiberal of the group’s efficiency, change could also be within the air.
Wilson, lengthy obsessive about profitable the Super Bowl, may demand a commerce if he feels his window for a title in Seattle has handed. And Carroll’s once-contagious enthusiasm is probably not sufficient to mitigate the harm from his conservative offense, one which appears higher suited to the 1970s than the high-octane 2020s. General Manager John Schneider, who in his 9 seasons in Seattle constructed these Seahawks, is rumored to be on the recent seat.
These Seahawks, identical as each Seattle squad since that final Super Bowl look on Feb. 1, 2015, reside within the formidable shadow forged by an period now lengthy gone. No shock: That’s the price of greatness. The Legion of Boom groups performed with such a burning ferocity and have been so startlingly good — the protection allowed the fewest factors scored 4 straight seasons, a feat solely beforehand completed by the 1950s Cleveland Browns — that you just watch the Seahawks now and by some means count on the previous to be the current.
Then actuality hits.
This isn’t the group of bombast led by the brash younger cornerback Richard Sherman, who blanketed receivers, dared quarterbacks to throw his method, and by no means let a perceived slight go unchallenged.
This isn’t the group of the safeties Kam Chancellor, ripping huge receivers off their moorings, or Earl Thomas, darting throughout the sector to scoop up fumbles and intercept passes sideline to sideline as if catapulted throughout the sector. This isn’t Michael Bennett anchoring a smothering defensive position.
Those assured and sometimes eloquent stars additionally helped usher in an period that allowed the league’s gamers to talk out and get up as by no means earlier than. Sherman and Bennett have been unafraid to inform everybody how good they have been, whereas additionally being greater than keen to talk out on points like race and police brutality. Lynch’s silence despatched its personal message of defiance.
“There was never any kind of backing down for those Seahawks,” says Louis Moore, a professor of historical past at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
