Seahawks ‘juiced’ after blowout
Coach’s decision to punish Newton for not wearing a tie might blow up in his face
To usher in the holiday season, here are the always festive musings and meditations on the world of sports.
n Today’s discussion question: In the absence of a clear-cut favourite, does the Seattle Seahawks’ 40-7 beat down of the Carolina Panthers on Sunday night change this year’s Super Bowl conversation?
That was certainly the sense in the Seahawks’ locker-room after the game. The loss of free safety Earl Thomas to a fractured tibia is significant. But there were a number of other developments from their big win which had the Seahawks, in the sainted phrase of receiver Doug Baldwin, “juiced.”
The most important of these was a running game which produced 240 yards on the ground, including 106 for Thomas Rawls, who’s been a non-factor this year because of injury. There was also the play of the defence, which returned stars Michael Bennett and Kam Chancellor to their familiar roles; the impact of return man/receiver Tyler Lockett, another player who’s been plagued by injuries this year; and the return of centre Justin Britt to solidify an offensive line which has been all over the map.
Then you look at the NFL landscape in 2016. To be sure, there are a number of quality teams, but they all carry a yes-but tag. Dallas is 11-1. But they also have a rookie quarterback in Dak Prescott who’s about to step into the hottest part of the spotlight for the first time. The Patriots are the Patriots, but they’re without uber tight end Rob Gronkowksi. The Raiders have some great players but, as a team, they’re neophytes. Kansas City has put together a fine year, but who knows if they’re legit?
Then there are the Seahawks, who have a winner’s pedigree and finally seem to have a running game to complete their offence.
“Four games left and this is a moment for us to take a turn to try to finish this season on a great note,” said Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll. “I love when the fourth quarter (of the season) gets here and it had nothing to do with (Sunday night).
“We move forward and leave what happened behind us. You never know (what will happen) until you get to that challenge, but we’ll show you. We’ll show you where we are.”
n Still with the Seahawks and Panthers, not sure what Panthers head coach Ron Rivera was hoping to accomplish by holding Cam Newton out of the lineup for his heinous failure to wear a tie on the road, but this has the potential to blow up in Rivera’s face.
It was bad enough that Panthers backup Derek Anderson served up an interception on the first play of the game. But the real story was watching Newton awkwardly answering for his transgression after a humiliating loss.
Newton was saying the right things but this is a proud man, to say nothing of the NFL’s reigning MVP, who’d just been embarrassed during a nationally televised game because he didn’t bring a tie on a prolonged road trip. Yes, there are team rules and, yes, Rivera is old school. But you pick your fights and this one — with his best player and the face of his franchise — wasn’t worth having.
Attention Twitter-verse. We’re aware you know everything, just as we’re aware there are serious questions about the direction of the Vancouver Canucks under Jim Benning. But this business has to be about fairness and balance, or it loses all credibility.
Given the path the Canucks have chosen — rebuilding on the fly — Benning has to be almost perfect in his decisions and he’s been far from that. Jake Virtanen remains a front-burner issue for the organization. The Gustav Forsling trade is troubling. So is the Loui Eriksson contract. We’re still not sure what the Canucks have in Erik Gudbranson. And we’d feel better if Matthew Tkachuk was in the Canucks’ lineup.
In his position, Benning can afford one mistake. But if he was wrong about Virtanen, wrong about Eriksson, wrong about Gudbranson and wrong about taking Olli Juolevi over Tkachuk, the Canucks’ plan will be set back another two or three years.
We trust that point needs no further illumination.
But that doesn’t mean you ignore the successes. Sven Baertschi and Markus Granlund were good trades for the Canucks. Signing Troy Stecher was huge for the organization. Benning’s first five draft picks with the Canucks were Virtanen, Jared McCann, Thatcher Demko, Nikita Tryamkin and Forsling.
Virtanen’s a lot of things. He’s also 20 years old. Let’s wait before we pass a final judgment on him — and Benning for that matter.
Leave it to Don Cherry to bring a calm, reasoned assessment to Gerard Gallant’s firing by the Florida Panthers.
“The worst firing in the history of the world,” fumed Grapes on Coach’s Corner Saturday night. Go ahead. You argue with the man. The Panthers, of course, are building their organization around advanced stats and analytics and Gallant is a hockey traditionalist who didn’t fit in the new world order. On that basis, there are a lot of people in the NHL who are openly rooting for the Panthers to fail, but this remains the single most fascinating story taking place in the NHL these days.
The Panthers are trying to shake the trees. If they succeed, they can reset the game’s agenda. Hockey, as a rule, doesn’t take kindly to upstarts — or anyone who has the arrogance to think they know a better way.
Stay tuned. This one bears watching.
And finally, Cam Cole is leaving our sister publication — which is now, I guess, this publication; cripes, this new media thing is confusing — after five decades in newspapers and I’m losing a friend and convivial colleague. But you’re losing a craftsman, one of the finest storytellers in our business, and if you’re not concerned, you should be.
Cole is of a dying breed, someone who could tell a story expertly without hyperbole and, more importantly, without an agenda. Those used to be the bedrock principles in newspapers and we’d like to believe they still are. But in the current climate our audience is attracted to brighter, more obvious things — and telling a good story well doesn’t always sell.
Still, those stories are the connective tissue which binds us together; one of the few experiences we can share and, without them, we become even more fragmented, more isolated from each other. We used to go to work and live our lives but we’d meet around the Super Bowl, the Grey Cup, the NHL playoffs, the Masters, whatever, and, for that moment, we were all in the same place.
Now, everyone talks about the divide which exists in our world and wonders how we got to this place.
It’s really not that big a mystery.