Seahawks Sunday roundup: Hello Ziggy Ansah and goodbye Doug Baldwin

Last week’s Seahawks news was a lot of ups and a lot of downs. This is some of the Seattle football news fit to read from the week ending 5/11/2019.

The Seahawks will be a changed football team in 2019. Seattle may be better or they may be worse. Either way, the roster in 2019 will have little resemblance to the roster in 2017. This has been another emotional roller coaster of an offseason for 12s. And a lot happened this past week that was emotional.

Goodbye Iconic Seahawks!

This isn’t breaking news, of course. Any Seahawks fan knows that Seattle released Doug Baldwin and Kam Chancellor this past week. Chancellor, of course, didn’t play at all in 2018 and was never expected to play again. Still, Seattle officially breaking up with one of the best safeties in the history of the franchise stinks.

As for Baldwin, 12s knew in their heart of hearts that he probably wouldn’t be coming back to play either. He had a bunch of injuries in 2018 and a lot of surgeries after the season. Baldwin is a good guy and better than football. I honestly cannot wait to see what he does in his post-football life.

There were hundreds (probably) of articles written about Baldwin’s release, and we wrote a bunch too. But I think every 12th man (person!) will honestly miss Baldwin on the field. He is probably the second-best receiver in Seahawks history behind Steve Largent.

It will be interesting to see how Baldwin’s absence affects Russell Wilson moving forward. Baldwin was a security blanket for Wilson a lot of times. I am not sure Wilson has the same type of trust in any other receiver.

Seahawks sign a bunch of free agents

Seattle did make some moves to improve their 2019 team. One was signing free agent edge rusher Ziggy Ansah. Ansah basically replaces Frank Clark and Seattle will need the same production from Ansah that they may have gotten from Clark.

Seattle also signed defensive tackle Al Woods last week to help with stopping the run in 2019. Woods is a bit like last year’s free agent signing Shamar Stephen, but better. Seattle needs to be better against the run. Woods will help them. To make room for Woods, Seattle cut Nate Orchard.

The Seahawks also signed cornerback Jamar Taylor, center Marcus Martin and running back Nick Bellore as well.  Seattle needs better special teams play in 2019 and these three players have the capability to help there.