IDP Projection Marking: Seattle Seahawks
Hi everyone and welcome to the fantasy off-season. It was a wild ride in 2017 and I’m still recovering, but there’s no real off-season in the dynasty world. In the summer I made projections for every IDP in the league I thought would be relevant. You can go back and read all of the 2017 IDP Projections here.
I was right in some places. I was wrong in some places. But either way, it’s important to be accountable and honest so I can figure out why and make adjustments in the future. I’ll be going through every team and noting where I was right and where I was wrong. To do that I’ll show what my projections were, how players actually performed, and how big the discrepancies were.
SLAM! That was the sound of the Seahawks title window slamming shut. Since Pete Carroll took over the Seahawks have been built around their defense and in particular the secondary. This year the unavoidable crush of entropy finally became too much to ignore and the unit was simply ordinary for much of the season. We’ve already been hearing plenty of rumors about players wanting or expecting to leave and it seems this is the beginning of the end. That’s not to say everything will suddenly collapse. They’ve still got some good, happy players. But Carroll and the front office need to do some fairly major surgery it seems.
From a personal point of view, I’m really happy with my work here. It’s such a distinctive scheme that it’s fairly easy to model it out effectively and so there is a lot of accuracy here.
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Defensive Tackle
When the Seahawks traded for Sheldon Richardson I remember some Seahawks fans being particularly offended by my take. They thought he could close in on double-digit sacks now he was in a much better place. I stuck to my guns and predicted a single sack for him. Lo and behold he managed one single sack for the season. That’s not to say he didn’t play well – in fact, I thought he was much better than in his last days as a Jet – but that role in Seattle does not generate gaudy stats. He also finished close to target on solos (six over), assists (one over) and batted passes (bang on).
Jarran Reed was another success. Any time the total inaccuracies are below 10, I think it’s excellent predicting. Reed was out by just three solos, two assists, and a PD.
Below the main men, Naz Jones and Quinton Jefferson also came in fairly close. Jones in particular was very promising and is a potential stash in larger, DT-premium leagues.
It’s worth touching on interceptions here. I predicted Jarran Reed and Quinton Jefferson would both have one. That’s quite a bold pick. Neither did in the end but Sheldon Richardson and Naz Jones both did with Jones having a memorable pick six).
Defensive End
Michael Bennett is one of the players making unhappy noises about contracts and his role in Seattle. Standard. But he was the best edge player again even at his advanced age. He also came in exactly on target for solo tackles and sacks and just one assist out. Yes, he managed two fewer batted passes than expected but this is still a great result.
Cliff Avril suffered a nasty injury that might end his career and thus failed to meet expectations. He goes down as a miss but injuries like that are hard to see coming.
Frank Clark was the subject of frequent off-season arguments. He was a textbook case of one of those players who put up a good stat (ten sacks in 2016) and his fans think he can’t help but improve on that stat. I always thought he’d regress slightly, and even with Avril out and Clark moved up the ladder, he managed just nine sacks (I predicted seven). I say this all the time but young players do not automatically improve their production the season after. Clark also came in just two solos, four assists, and two PDs out from predictions.
Linebacker
Bobby Wagner was ferocious this season. He deserves the chatter about him being a candidate for defensive player of the year. His 97 solo tackles were outstanding and led the league along with Demario Davis. Needless to say, that was more than I expected but only by 13. On the other hand, he underdelivered on assists. The Seahawks stat crew is famously assist-heavy but they seem to have been reigned in a bit this season. As a result, Wagner “only” managed 36 assists. That was far fewer than expected. He made up for these imbalances by being only one away from prediction on sacks, PDs, and INTs.
K.J. Wright is continually undervalued in IDP circles. Even though all the IDP analysts I know keep saying “he’s undervalued”. This year he put up fantastic numbers with 72 solos (20th among all LBs) and 37 assists (15th among all LBs). The solo figure was the one stat I didn’t see coming.
Cornerback
The Legion of Boom seems well and truly exploded by now. NFL fans have fallen over themselves to praise Shaq Griffin but was he really a good player? Just look at the tackle numbers here. Griffin managed double the number of solos that any other Seahawk corner did. Double! He was straight up getting abused by opposing QBs. He did manage an excellent 15 PDs but I fear that was more due to the volume of targets than a reflection of skill.
Justin Coleman finished second in snaps for the unit and was also an example of a weaker player being picked on. Both he and Griffin obviously far outstripped their predicted stat lines with Richard Sherman and Jeremy Lane (both limited by injury) failing to meet them the other way.
Safety
It’s entirely possible that in 2018 neither Kam Chancellor (injury) nor Earl Thomas (Dallas open flirting) are Seahawks. That would be an amazing turn of events. Carroll is one of the better defensive back coaches in the league but losing either one of them would be a big blow. Both of them together might be a knockout punch.
Chancellor was not a good result here managing only about half of all the expected numbers. Earl Thomas was far better and finished just two solos, six assists, four PDs and an interception out. Given his outstanding range and ability as a deep fielder Earl Thomas’ tackling is sorely underrated.
In summary
There’s an unavoidable tinge of pessimism about this whole team to me. Where before they’ve papered over the cracks with chutzpah and sheer will, they now seem big enough to sink the team. Going into the off-season they need to build the offensive line up from scratch, retool the secondary and retool the pass rush. I find it tough to see them managing all three of those tasks at the same time.
Thanks for reading.
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