Three key position battles for the Seattle Seahawks
By Geoff Shull
Seahawks Position Battle #1: Strong safety
The Seahawks have 3 starting caliber safeties. They have Marquise Blair, Quandre Diggs and Bradley McDougald. Quandre Diggs is almost guaranteed a starting spot. The guy can flat out play. The remaining question lies with who will be the starting strong safety between Bradley McDougald and Marquise Blair.
Bradley McDougald
McDougald is a great complimentary piece. Standing alone (like he did last year with Tedric Thompson) he gets exposed. However, when you add in a higher caliber player next to him like Quandre Diggs, you see his game open up and he wreaks havoc. Last season McDougald allowed a passer completion percentage of just 54.4% on 57 targets and 0 touchdowns.
The biggest hindrance would be that McDougald is turning 30 this year and is on the last year of his deal. Seattle could trade/cut him and save $4.1 million of his $5.3 million cap hit. He also lacks anything in the big play department. He is more of a quietly efficient and effective player who simply does his job, and does it well.
Marquise Blair
Blair is the polar opposite of McDougald. Where McDougald is clean and smooth, Blair has rough edges and will have hiccups. However, he possesses a great amount of potential. Blair missed most of the training camp, and preseason last year with injuries. This cost him a lot of valuable time learning the system and unfortunately, it also cost him the chance to compete for the starting position right away.
When Blair did play, he was exceptional. Sure, there were some rookie mishaps. However, through his hard nose defensive style and big hit ability, he helped bring back some of the bad boy image that is so sorely missed. At least for a couple of games.
Blair did start 3 games last season due to injuries around him. He posted the second-best PFF grade (71.3) for the Seahawks secondary behind only Shaquil Griffin (77) during that spree.
The biggest worry with Blair would be that he will have to learn on the field. Meaning, there will be coverage gaps. There will be missed tackles. There will be plays that are not read correctly. This is no different than Earl Thomas in his first couple of seasons. The hope is that everything starts clicking in the way it did for Thomas.
Conclusion
Coach Carroll has a big decision ahead of him. Does he start McDougald for the final year of his deal, due to his technical soundness and simply knowing what you are getting. Or does Coach Carroll veer for a changing of the guards to an inexperienced, yet big-play machine who could be the safety of the future?
My Pick:
Starting strong safety: Marquise Blair
Cut/Trade: Bradley McDougald