Is The Future Here Already For The Seahawks?
With three young stars under the age of 26, the future is bright
By Seattle Mag November 22, 2015
The three most important players for the Seattle Seahawks Sunday in their lopsided win over rival San Francisco 49ers were Russell Wilson, Tyler Lockett and Thomas Rawls, three offensive players aged 26, 23 and 22, respectively.
Forgive me if I’m already thinking of Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith and the Dallas Cowboys dynasty in the ’90s, but maybe, just maybe, there is something brewing here for the long term. Maybe the Hawks’ winning window isn’t shutting.
Bowling over S.F., the undrafted rookie Rawls ran for 209 yards on 30 carries with one touchdown Sunday. He also had 46 yards on three receptions and another score. In his two other starts this year, Rawls ran for 169 yards with a touchdown against the Cincinnati Bengals and 104 yards against the Chicago Bears.
With running back Marshawn Lynch, Seattle has been known to have one of the best running attacks in all of professional football, but Lynch has been injured this season and looks to only have maybe one more productive season ahead. If Rawls, only the second back to ever run for more than 200 yards (Shaun Alexander), can follow Lynch’s lead (his nickname in college was Beast Mode, after all), then the future of the team’s backfield looks promising.
Rawls’ first-year counterpart, Tyler Lockett, gained 48 yards through the air on four receptions with two touchdowns against San Francisco. Lockett is also one of the most explosive special teams players in the NFL, having returned two kicks for scores just halfway through the season.
For a team with no lineage of wide receivers (no matter how much Doug Baldwin and Jermaine Kearse have overachieved in their careers), Lockett could be the bright star the Hawks have always needed. Especially with Wilson at the helm, a Pro Bowler and Super Bowl winner who threw for 253 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 30 yards on nine carries Sunday.
Seattle’s defense continues to look weaker than anyone really wants to admit. The team gave up 264 yards and a touchdown to Blaine Gabbert, a career backup. And, for a quarter or two, the game appeared to be close against the awful Niners. But with the help of their young offensive talent, the Hawks were victorious and the defense was smiling on the sidelines.
Plenty of teams throughout professional sports have won several years in a row, but if young talent isn’t replenished then the team tends to fall off a cliff pretty quickly. But in Wilson, Lockett and Rawls, the Seahawks general manager has found three young gems in the later rounds of the draft.
On Sunday, the team raised its record to 5-5, and have a home game ahead against the decent Pittsburgh Steelers next. Following that they play the surprisingly talented Minnesota Vikings. If they split those games, they’ll be 6-6 with the Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns and St. Louis Rams next. That should leave them 9-6 going into the final game of the season with the Arizona Cardinals.
Anything can happen, of course, but the future seems bright no matter what transpires the rest of 2015.
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