John Schneider says Seahawks mindset needs to get back to “compete”
By Lee Vowell
Seahawks general manager John Schneider addressed NFL media on Friday at the NFL Scouting Combine. A day after Pete Carroll answered questions about the changing roster in Seattle, Schneider did the same. Schneider, though, thinks Seattle needs a mindset reset.
When the Seahawks were becoming a great team in 2011 and 2012, the roster was full of players who competed for their positions. John Schneider on Friday implied that Seattle may have lost some of their edge.
When referring to interviewing college players to see if they fit with the Seahawks, Schneider said
"And you are getting to the point where we are interviewing these guys at the combine or you are at the school interviewing them, and they are thinking to themselves ‘Wow, I get to play with Kam Chancellor?’ No, you get to compete with Kam Chancellor. That’s the mindset we have to get back to."
This is a Seattle team built on Friday practices where the players compete amongst themselves for playing time. Seattle players have to earn the right to play on Sundays under Pete Carroll. Or at least, they used to.
Players with tenure who earn lots of money have a tendency to relax a bit. This doesn’t just happen in Seattle or in the NFL; This happens in every profession. And the Seahawks have been able to sustain the attitude of competitiveness for longer than most teams.
But lack of quality drafts in the last few years means there haven’t been younger players to truly push the talented veterans. Players like Delano Hill and Amara Darboh might one day be good. But for Seattle’s sake, these players need to be much better in their second seasons.
Seattle’s great veterans are getting injured more often and playing too many snaps. These are the guys who knew how to compete and become Pro Bowl players when they were in their second and third seasons. Players like Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas and Michael Bennett became champions because they wanted to and nothing was going to stop them.
Without the edge of the need to compete, Seattle is mostly a mediocre team. Just like almost every other NFL team would be. Seattle needs its anger and drive back. And for the Seahawks to be a Super Bowl caliber team again, the young players need to infuse the team with new anger and drive.
John Schneider and Pete Carroll both know this team needs its swagger back. The only way to really do that is with some new impactful players to go along with the older ones. This year’s NFL draft is monumental to Seattle’s future success.
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Let’s hope for fans of the Seahawks sake (which includes me) that there is a player with Sherman’s fire and Chancellor’s anger available for Seattle to take.