The Seahawks disastrous history of acquiring offensive stars

Committing to poor decisions

Pete Carroll and John Schneider parted ways with all three of the players mentioned. So why is it that they have also committed similarly poor decisions?

It’s simple, really – the superstars that can transcend their original team and succeed anywhere are either too impossible to get or have exceeded their prime by the time they get to you.

For Carroll and Schneider, they were aware of the risks they were taking. Harvin was infamous for being injury prone, and Jimmy Graham had a reputation for being soft and a disgruntled employee.

Both players backed up these inferences in Seattle, marking both their tenures a disaster for a team with dynasty dreams.

The one rare occurrence in which such a trade has succeeded for the Seahawks was the Lynch deal. However, the compensation in that trade was nowhere near what the Hawks gave up for Harvin and Graham.

The Jimmy Graham problem

In the case of Graham, the wound of Super Bowl XLIX was still very fresh for the Seahawks. They wanted a true red zone target who could make that catch in that situation.

The problem was, the Seahawks never got back to that moment and it signaled the beginning of their current fall from grace.

Schneider and Carroll didn’t learn from their first mistake with Harvin and sent the Saints a first round pick and their best offensive lineman to the Saints for Graham and a fourth rounder.

Considering the price, it seemed that Graham would become a cornerstone in the Seahawks’ offense. Instead, it was immediately clear that Graham wasn’t a fit for the Seahawks’ scheme and his success in New Orleans would never properly translate.

The Sheldon Richardson problem

Once these failures began to leak out into the defense with the acquisition of Sheldon Richardson last season, it was apparent that Carroll and Schneider had lost their identity a bit. They were, more or less, abandoning the idea of drafting and developing players in favor of buying high on established NFL talent in hopes of finding the next Marshawn Lynch.

Perhaps it was an act of desperation to get one more Super Bowl out of their original core, but it was too late.

Thankfully, the Seahawks seem to be rectifying these issues in 2018 and returning to what they started back in 2010.

While they did add a big name in Brandon Marshall, he didn’t cost them anything and therefore cannot be compared to Harvin or Graham in any way. If he succeeds, though, good on Carroll and Schneider. If not, it’s not a big deal.

Next: The Seahawks are going to have *what* record?

The best route to building a championship team is not by adding superstars, it’s by developing personnel to fit what you do. There’s a reason the two best receivers for the Seahawks in the last decade have been Doug Baldwin and Jermaine Kerase, who both went undrafted. Hopefully the Seahawks now recognize this because there is no longer room for such errors.