Competition heats up for Seahawks backup quarterback role
The backup quarterback role is incredibly important considering no one ever wants to see them play. Here’s how the Seahawks situation is shaping up.
Technically I suppose that isn’t true. I’m sure all 12s would be happy to see the Seahawks backup quarterback come into a Seattle blowout midway through the fourth quarter. It’s not like we still have Dan McGwire on the bench, after all. But overall, the backup is the most important player you never want to see. In fact, you’d rather not even acknowledge he exists. If he isn’t there, Russell Wilson can’t ever get hurt, right?
Regardless of our hopes and wishes, every team does need a good backup. Just ask the Philadelphia Eagles how their season would have gone if they’d had Tom Savage on the roster instead of Nick Foles? I don’t see a championship run in that alternate universe. So you have to have a backup, and he better be good.
Which brings us back to the Seahawks. The incumbent backup Austin Davis certainly has his detractors. I get it. It’s hard to get excited about a guy with a starting record of 3-7. Put that record into context though, and he’s better than that. Davis was 3-5 for a mediocre Rams team that was also 3-5 with Shaun Hill behind center. The Rams were 7-9 the year before, and went 7-9 the year after. Speaking of Nick Foles, he was 4-7 as the starter. There’s a reason Jeff Fisher finally got the axe.
As for the other two losses on Davis’s record, he was in Cleveland in 2015. The Browns were a sparkling 3-11 with the other quarterbacks on their carousel of doom. I’ve looked at Davis in depth before. I wrote then and still believe that he’s much better than some of the alternatives out there. He’s no Russell Wilson, of course.
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But whether Davis is better than Wilson isn’t the question. The real question is this: is he better than Alex McGough? The results from OTA and minicamp show the answer may be a long time coming. McGough wasn’t exactly a big name in the 2018 draft. The Seahawks drafted him in the seventh round, in fact. We all know you can’t expect anything from a seventh-round pick, right? Although I suppose Chris Carson presents a pretty good counter to that statement. As Bobby Wagner said, it doesn’t matter how you get to the NFL, all that matters is what you do with the opportunity.
So far McGough seems to be doing a lot with his opportunity. As Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times reported, the backup competition is on. Pete Carroll had this to say about the rookie from Florida International:
"Well Alex has come a long way. I don’t know if you noticed from the reps, but we threw him in and gave him a lot of turns to see where he could take it. He’s got a good arm, he runs well, he’s studying, he’s learning, it doesn’t seem too big for him at this level of competition. We’re not into the playing games yet, we’ll have to wait and see—we’re not even into camp yet—but he’s done a nice job with it so far and warranted giving him extra shots."
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Carroll went on to praise Davis as well, because he’s Pete Carroll and he’s a praise machine. You put in food, water and air and you get nearly endless encouragement. And some pretty astute football judgment as well. I’m certainly not the only one looking forward to how this will all play out, but I’ll give the edge to the rookie. He’s more mobile than Davis, so he fits Seattle’s scheme better. Of course Trevone Boykin fit the scheme perfectly, but in the end Davis was simply a better quarterback. I’m rooting for whoever wins to see a lot of clipboard action and nothing else.