The Rise Up, See Red podcast

2024 Cardinals opponent preview: Seattle Seahawks with Tim Weaver

This is the 11th show of the 14 shows in 14 days about the Arizona Cardinals' 14 opponents in 2024. This one focuses on the Seattle Seahawks, whom the Cardinals face twice in three weeks, on the road in week 12 and at home in Week 14. Jess is joined by former Seahawks Wire managing editor Tim Weaver to talk about Seattle's 2023 season, the offseason and the expectations for the Seahawks in 2024.

Duration:: 42m
Broadcast on:: 19 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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For innovators everywhere, visit hiland.com. This is the Rise Up Sea Red Podcast, all about the Arizona Cardinals and the NFL, featuring insider and outsider perspectives. Enjoy the best hour of Cardinals Talk on the web. Now, here are your hosts, Jess Root and Seth Cox. Hello, Arizona Cardinals fans, and welcome to the latest edition of the Rise Up Sea Red Podcast. The best day of Cardinals Talk on the web. I'm your host, Jess Root from cardswire.com, USA Today, NFL Wiresight, and we, this is this edition of the show. I'm not going to number these episodes over the next few times because I don't know what order they will get published. We are in the opponent preview series that we like to do every single year where I bring on a writer that covers the Cardinals opponents, each of those 14 opponents in the season. And in this edition of the show, we are focusing on one of the Cardinals and its EOS rivals, the Seattle Seahawks, and joining me for, I don't know how many times he's done this several times. He's covered a lot of teams, whether it was the Panthers, the Seahawks. Now technically, he is the former site editor of Seahawkswire.com. He jumped ship without telling me to before today, jump ship before telling me, heading over to sporting news to cover the Houston, Texas. It's Tim Weaver, a man who has multi-talented in terms of the teams that he's covered. How many teams does that make it now that you've, that you've covered over the years? I think it's 9 or 10, let me see, we've started out Seahawks, Eagles, Bears, Steelers, Panthers, Falcons, Seahawks again, Texas, I guess 8. Oh man, that's a lot. That's a lot. I have covered the Cardinals. I covered other local stuff here back in my days for running the regional Arizona sports page for SB Nation, but no, NFL covered the Cardinals, covered the Cardinals in. So welcome back. You've done this. I don't know how many years in a row it's been. Joining me on the, on the preview show, the Cardinals will face the Seahawks twice. In fact, they will face them twice in three weeks in week 12 after their pie. And then again, in week 14, it's very interesting because the Cardinals, the other division opponents are spread out. They play the Rams in week two and then in week 17, the 49ers, they play, I think, in week five or six, and then in week 18, and then the Seahawks, it's, and we'll get them it. We'll do two and three weeks later in the year, which is interesting because the Seahawks have underwent some changes. Now what we'll talk about is we want to start by with last year, obviously when we get to the off season, off season of change, coming off of their playoff appearance the year before, they went into this year, didn't do poorly, but finished nine and eight. If you look back on the, on the 2023 season for, for the Seahawks, what would you rate it? Like, what was this? What were the successes? What were the disappointments and ultimately, how did the season match up with expectations? Overall, I'd say they felt just a little short of expectations. If you forced me to give them the grade, I'd probably go with a B minus or C plus somewhere in between those two. It's a really talented group. It's mostly young. There are a few key veterans, Gina Smith's still there. They lost Bobby Wagner, but like a good mix of youth and experience, and they look good, and most units are at least not a liability except the offensive line, which is always terrible. But I really thought they would win 11 games. I thought they would at least give the Niners a run for the money, not get blown out again. So they did fall a little bit short, overall of my expectations. I think it was, and obviously the organization agreed. I think it was the fact that they just didn't live up to their potential. They just needed another voice in there or somebody to break through and like get out of this rut that they've been in. I wrote an article early in the season. This is the sixth straight year that they've had a below average defense. That's a problem anytime, but especially when your head coach is a defensive genius, an all-time great defensive coach, like something's wrong there, like if it happens one or two seasons, you know, that happens. But like he had plenty of time to restock that defense after the Legion of Boom left, and it just wasn't able to do it. They were never able to get back, even to like an average level, even being a mediocre defense would have been a step up most of those years. So they did have to make a big change at the top. That's what they did, bringing in Mike Donald. And you know, kind of the point in the season that kind of things fell apart were the four straight losses from week 11 to week 14 where they lost to the Rams, the 49ers, the Cowboys and the 49ers again, and they kind of basically, basically kind of did in their season when terms of the hopes, losing those three divisional games at Verney hopes of the postseason. Last season, you had a couple of good games in terms of run defense. But the run defense seemed to be the problem, even with the addition of Leonard Williams late mid-season, they gave up over the last seven weeks of this year, 169, 136, 173, 178, 168, 162, 202 and 206 to the Cardinals. And I guess you could say that the Cardinals, I mean, they went 9 and 8, but they were lucky to go 9 and 8 because the Cardinals, and for us, for draft ranking, Matt Prater missing that field goal was a blessing because it means Marvin Harrison. But yeah, and that was a game where James Conner absolutely just terrorized them, but the Cardinals defense was, you know, even worse than the Seahawks. So yeah, what would you say? What would you say overall that you talk about the defense? Was that the overarching thing, was the lack of a physical run defense? I mean, that was the big, that was why they've lost several close games the last two years. It wasn't just last year, like they started out well in 20th century. They made it a big deal. Like we're going to fix the run day. That was their whole thing is obvious and we're going to get that run defense down. And for a few weeks, it looked like they had it. They were really good against the run until like week 5, 6, then it dropped down and got dropped down and just kept getting worse and worse as the season went along. And I don't know what adjustments they tried to make, but they didn't work. You know, after a certain point, you know, one guy misses a tackle, two guy misses a tackle. If all your guys are missing tackles, then you consistently start against the run. It's a coaching problem. So they wound up finishing, I believe 30th against the run as far as rushing yards allowed for the second straight year. So that was definitely a big part of what, you know, you can't blame letter, Williams was playing his ass off like he was really, he was drawing double teams. He was doing everything he could, but it was a systemic problem against the run that had lasted for more than just a season and a half. It was a recurring problem. So that was one issue, I think. I imagine in that meeting went Jodie L and then John Schneider sat down with Pete Carroll. They said like, look, this is something you're a defensive genius, but this has been a problem for several years now, and we've given you the tools you said you needed. They gave up big, I didn't like the Leonard Williams trade itself. Like I think it was the right idea to keep him now that you have him on your roster. And he played very, very well for them in the second half of the season, but it was a bad trade. They gave up two picks and they wound up just immediately going on like a six game losing streak. It did not work out well. They went all in and immediately just got blown out. It was, it was not a big win. I think that may have, the way that that went down may have been the last straw for them. There had been other bad trades. The game wasn't it? They got them and then they, yes, they get boat raced 37 to three. That was the game that kind of broke their streak. Three hundred rushing yards. Yeah, that was the game where ever since then, I think that just kind of broke their spirit as far as tackling and stopping their run. Like you could see after that, they weren't the same. They just got like completely demoralized by Baltimore, the trenches. Yeah. And then they owned the game, the only game that they won in that, in that six game stretch was a three point win over the commanders who were awful. Geno Smith, obviously a couple of years ago when he took over for Russell Wilson, he started out game busters playing at MVP level, then kind of leveled off late in the season. What would you say his play was last year? He statistically, he, well, technically he was a pro bowler. He was like he did go to the pro bowl to the pro bowl games, I guess is what it's called now. Efficient, you know, nearly 65% of his passes completed 20 touchdowns, only nine interceptions on 92.1 pass or rating. What would you, what would you say about, you know, Smith's play last season? I really like this play. I know a lot of people will look at the raw numbers, like just 20 touchdown passes, 11 interceptions. Like I said, wrote yesterday, that's not going to win you a lot of fantasy league championships. He's not, you know, he's not a fantasy star. He's probably not going to be, he would have been at this point in his career. But as far as actual for your backing play, he did really, really well in a lot of ways. He was the best deep ball thrower, at least most prolific deep ball thrower for the second year in a row. I know his numbers were down like, yeah, 30 touchdowns in 2022, but that coincides with the wrestling, you know, everyone's running these two safety sets now. So nobody can take the top off Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen ruined it for everybody. So now everybody's got to try a dink and dunk a little bit more. So that's normal. Like I wouldn't be worried about his numbers at all. He's extremely accurate. He got much better. He got no choice really. He got much better avoiding sacks. I think only Mahomes had a better pressure to sack ratio. He was just brilliant escaping, constantly having to run for his life and getting the ball off and making good reads. I think the Dallas game was just, that was one of the best quarterbacking games I've ever seen because their pass rush was just all over him. He had no time to throw and just, it's like he could see everything coming. He released his balls, just the overall the competence that he had, the ice in his veins. It was extremely impressive considering the situation he was under. That made me a believer. I saw that. I said, this is, he's not going to play like this every week, obviously, it was the best game of his career, but like he's playing like a top five quarterback right now. He's capable of reaching that level. He really made me a believer and like, I'm okay with them, beating him for like the time being. I know he's 33 years old now, but he's not like Matt Stafford was when he was 33 when he had been in a car wreck every week because the Lions couldn't protect him for 10 years. He spent from 2015 to 2021, he was on the sidelines. His body wasn't taking that punishment, so like he's not really like a 10 year veteran. His body is fresher and you can see he moves really well for back that age. I'm happy with him keeping him for now as long as you know, his contract is a good value. You can make a case next year because if they cut him, they saved 25 million cap room, which is pretty good. That's a lot of savings, but it's also going to be a big dead money hit. And who are you going to find? That's a better value there, like they're just, they're not many if you're not on their rookie contract. He's a really good value right now and he's he's playing the hell out of that position. Some of the young players from last year, Ken Walker, 905 yards, rookie Zack Sharbonay, 462 rushing yards, he have Jackson Smith and Jigba added to the mixed 63 catches, 628 yards from the touchdown. Add to that, you've got your your young defensive players of you've got Devin Witherspoon. You have Rick Wollin kind of had, he didn't do as well, didn't do as well in year two as he did in year one, but what, what did you think about the young players on the roster a season ago? I love Devin Witherspoon. I haven't been this excited about a Seahawkser key, probably since Metcalf and it's not like Metcalf. You could see where it was going to go, just because it's seen athleticism having that fives and explosiveness and that package that he does with a spoon it just, yes, he's fast as he's lanky like these Seahawks corners always tend to be, but he's just me. He's just, I just started him as a mean little gremlin in the slot. He just loves to hit people, not the way most cornerbacks aren't like that. You know, there are a few, but there's not many cornerbacks or that visible. He loves to blitz from that spot. He loves to hit runners, just very impressed by him overall. He had a bad game against the Steelers late in the season, everyone was bad that game. Nobody could tackle particularly bad game from him, but you saw he bounced back in that finale against Arizona. That's what I really look for. Like, how do you respond? Everyone has a bad game, but how do you bounce back after that bad game? How do you respond? I remember growing up here in Chicago, like Michael had a bad game off the Bulls loss. The next opponent was screwed. There's no, they had no transient module packet in because 99.8% of those games George was going to win because he was angry. That's what I was looking for for him, because he didn't have any, he only had one or two rough games, the rookie, but he bounced back very well for them. Bullen, I really like as well, he definitely dropped off a bit in run defense for someone his size. I'd really like to see him stick his nose in the morning like he's 6'4, he's faster than all these guys. There's no reason why he should be a very good tackler, so I'd like to see him improve in that under McDonald, but still very good in coverage, still tough to throw. against a very, very lethal in man coverage. He struggled in zone, which is mostly what they played, so that was partially a problem. The very, very good lockdown one-on-one kind of guy, and those two, that's kind of like your foundation. You've got Leonard Williams and now the rookie Byron Murphy up front, and then those two on the back end. That's what they're going to build around these next few years. Coming in next on the Rise up Sierra podcast, Mr. Pardles talk about the off season, coaching changes, losses, gains, free agency of the draft that's coming in next on Rise up Sierra. 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They said Pete Carroll was going to stay on in a quote unquote advisory role, so that's what I thought. I thought that was a good idea. You don't want to totally throw out the Pete Carroll era. They're good things that he built here. Like the culture, you want to keep that. There are certain things you just don't want to change. That's not broken. Don't fix it. But they did need to change, I think, schematically. Even though he gave his coordinators a lot of freedom, they were calling their own things. It did not keep up with the trends around the NFL. The biggest one I'd point to, crease snap disguises, he just didn't do it. He just didn't care. Here's what I'm doing. Here's what I'm showing. That's something that was a holdover from this. You had Earl Thomas, Cam Chancellar, Richard Sherman, they were going to play cover one or cover three. What are you going to do about it? But they don't have those players anymore. They didn't keep up with the trends of the NFL. On the other side of the ball, I'd say fourth down was another thing that you just way, way behind it. The Steelers game was the worst. I think that was probably what convinced Jody Allen to move on with him. In fact, they punted twice on fourth and one and it wasn't deep in their own territory or anything. We're talking around midfield, fourth and one critical game, punted both times. Meanwhile, the Steelers, one of the most conservative teams in the league, they know better. Mike Tomlin knows better. He's adjusted over time to know that. They went for two fourth and ones with QB sneaks, 80% excessive or 85%. Everyone knows QB sneaks work. QB care refused to run them. Those two players worked out for Pittsburgh, Seattle, punted twice. That's the game right there. That's the whole game and that happened over and over and over again and just got very frustrating from being, I don't consider myself purely a nerd kind of fan. I believe in math. I believe in analytics, but I understand you want to run the ball, you want to be physical, you want to set the tone, you want to play a certain kind of game, but you have to look at those numbers and say there's just, there's no way to justify not going for an unforeseen short like that when you're near midfield, there's just, there's no way to do it. So they needed to make a change and they did. And then moving to Mike McDonald, what have been the early reviews for the new head coach who was, you know, his time as Baltimore's defensive coordinator was impressive. How do things look so far? Obviously, we haven't seen football in the field, but in philosophy, things that he says, what does he look like as a head coach? Well, obviously, they're not going to say bad things about their new boss, but players have all responded really well, like whenever they're asked about this, they say they love his defense, they're buying and Devin Witherspoon described his coaching style as kind of nerdy in a good way. And I was very encouraged by that, like this is someone who like understands the modern nuances, like here's what the numbers say and here's, you know, how you have to confuse modern quarterback. You can't just go out and keep running the same thing and do it by, it seemed like a time's carol relied on the motivation more so than the X's than it was, not to say he's a bad X's and O's coach, but like too much of it was like, we're just going to get hyped up there. We're going to chew our gum really hard. We're going to go out there. We're going to play harder than you and beat you, but like you see, you have to be smarter than that now and that that that's really what I expect more than anything. It's going to be a smarter defense. He knows how the skies covered his very, they were brutal on any inexperienced quarterback, like the 49ers offense was an absolute unstoppable juggernaut. They had won like, I don't know, 20 regular season games in a row and they played ball to one. They just got completely shut down. Brock Purdy looked like a child up, but he often looks like a child anyway, but especially against that defense. I don't get the Brock Purdy thing. I refuse to play along. He's not good. Not going to be good. There's nothing. I don't see anything really promising about it, but that's another story. The Ravens, they just, they absolutely thrashed the best offense in the league there. I mean, they couldn't beat the Chiefs, but like nobody can. If anybody's going to win the Super Bowl aside from a home for the next few years, it'll be the Ravens. But losing McDonald is going to hurt. He had so many players playing their best ball like Kyle Hamilton was going to be great anyway, but he got him playing at an all-pro level. You can say he's probably the best safety in the league right now. McDonald was a part of that, but even older guys on the edge, they had Kyle van Noah and Jadaevian Clowney. They both been around like 10 years. They both got about 10 sacks just like he and they were cheap. If you can get cheap pass rushing, I feel like that's a big part of a winning equation on the league. If you don't have to pay von Miller tons of money to get sacks through, if you can find a way to manufacture those pressures without paying a ton of money, I think that's a big deal. And that's one thing I'm looking forward to. But he has to stop the run like without that, it's kind of all lost. Like yes, their pass rush has been lagging for a few years, probably since they carried Michael Bennett. I never liked that trade, but they haven't been a dominant pass rush since he left and they really need to get back to that. But it's all meaningless if they don't improve against the run, but I trust him to do that much at least. So they brought back Leonard Williams. They lose, well, they completely are remaking the safety room, the linebacker room. They released Jamal Adams. That ended up being an awful trade over the years. They released Quandre Diggs, Bobby Wagner left her free agency, Devin Bush left and free agency, Jordan Brooks left and free agency. Amy Lewis leaves and free agency, so does Evan Brown, who signs with the Cardinals. And then they go out and add, they add Jerome Baker, entitled Dodson, who did the linebacker room. They bring in George Fant at tackle Jonathan Hankins. They trade for Sam Howell, drew lock no longer with the team. They add Laken Tomlinson, Kavan Wallace, who, like, of the losses, who's going to be felt the, what losses are going to be felt the most, and who of the free agency editions are you most excited about, most excited about? I think Bobby Wagner is an easy choice as far as losses go, because we just went through this two off seasons ago when he signed with the Rams. That didn't work out very well for them. Signed a five year deal, only lasted one, came back. But I would have been happy paying Wagner as I was only six and a half million. But I understand that this move on, but they're most likely going to take a step back at linebacker. He's not the greatest linebacker in the world anymore. He's probably lost half a step, but he's still much, much better than average. Still the smartest linebacker there is in the game, maybe Levante David. And I wouldn't trust anybody else to run that defense. But who knows? We don't know who's going to be the defensive play caller yet. So, I would say Tyrell Dodson, who we know is going to replace him at middle linebacker. We don't know if he's going to be the guy calling plays. That's to be determined. But one free agent I am excited about on that back end. There's Rachon Jenkins, who's probably flying under the radar a bit. He played for Jacksonville. I remember him jumping out to me. I was watching them, whatever I can see Trevor Lorn, so I lost him in the morning. He just jumped out to me. He's really physical. I really liked what he did. He did a different scheme, obviously, but just very physically seems to fit. They want. And I just love how you can move him all over. That seems to be the key. McDonald wants and all these new pieces for that defense. Like, you got to be able to play in the slot, you got to play outside, you can play in the box, you're going to play deep, you know, and that's, for some extent, that's everybody on the back end now. But like, to be able to do that well and not be a liability, any one of those spots, that's what I'm looking for from Jenkins, for sure. On the other side. Is fans edition because Abe Lucas, they're real concerned about Abe Lucas? Yes, and legitimately so. This is something that burns me because they knew about this knee problem that he had at Los Angeles State. It's not a new injury that he has. It's a chronic knee pain thing that Abe Lucas had going back to college. It cost him 11 games last year, and they were just awful. They tried three different write tackles in his place. They had Jason Peters, who's like 42 years old now. They had Stone for Scythe for a few weeks. They tried Jake Kran for a few weeks. None of them worked. It was all a dumpster fire on that write tackle spot. And so, Genosmith had to run for his life every other snap. That was really what broke their season more than anything. If they had just gotten average pass protection on the right side there, it probably could have gone a lot better for them. But yeah, I didn't like the fans signing. They'd had to do something. But I feel like Jordan's kind of he's able, at least. At center, is Oluwotani going to take over this year, or does Nick Harris project as the starter? Right now, it looks like it's going to be Oluwotani. He's been playing with the first string UN, which is all we really have to go on now. You don't know what that'll look like. It's September. He may look fine now, but then it doesn't go so well in September. It could be either one of those guys, like they're not very experienced. That would be one thing. If they do sign another free agent before the season, like get an experienced center to someone with more than four games of starting at center, that would be ideal. Even less than that for Oluwotani. That would be one spot I'd look at. But Fant is definitely a desperation move. I would have rather they just actually go get Trent Brown, make sure you have that right tackle spot locked down. If Lucas ends up being healthy, you can figure it out from there. Maybe you slide somebody inside, maybe you switch them over. You have to make sure that right tackle spot isn't just an absolute liability because that can sink their whole offense like it did last year. In the draft you add Byron Murphy, the second's out of Texas. In the first round, Connecticut guard Christian Haynes in round two, Murphy should play right away, should be very good next to Leonard Williams, I imagine you project. But of these guys that the Seahawks drafted, who else do you foresee making an impact this year? You got Christian Haynes, Tyree Snite, Titan, AJ Barner, Cornerback, Nehemia Prickett, actually got both the Auburn cornerbacks with Pritchett and DJ James adding Satal Alameha and then another offensive Michael Jarell. Of those players, who do you expect them to make an impact this year and who do you like for the future? This year Murphy's really the only clear answer that we have. I don't know that any of the rest of them are going to start this year. I hope this is a big X factor for this class. If Christian Haynes used their second pick but it was a third round, they had a huge gap between they took Murphy at 16, they're the weight into the 80s to get Haynes and they were lucky he was still there. But if he can't wind up starting at right guard, that kind of stings because Anthony Branford was really bad the second half of last season and so far he's been working with the second string. As I was hoping he'd start out a little hotter and they get him going with the starters earlier. I'm hoping at least by mid season he's starting at right guard. If he does, I expect him to do very well. I know the learning curve is rough in the NFL. He may have some bad games, he may have a bad rookie season but eventually I do expect him to do well. But as far as this year's concern, Murphy's the only one who can really say he's going to get significant playing time. He's probably going to make a genuine impact for this team right away. Let's move on to what expectations are for 2024, let's go to the next recipe. Buick Enclave is designed to make together your favorite place to be with an abundance of thoughtful features like the hands-free power liftgate and with generous space for up to seven. Your family will agree. Time spent together inside this SUV is time well spent. Enclave gives connectivity a starring role. Your family will stay connected to the world even when you are on the move. It's Buick Enclave today at Shortline Buick 1301 South Havana Street. You do the drive-in, we'll do the rest. We all have somewhere we're trying to get to. 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Forward, we're prohibited by law. 18-plus terms and conditions apply. We're back on the rise-ups here at Podcasts. We've started our Cardinals talking to Tim Weaver, former Seahawks wire manager over here at the NFL Wire, now covering the Houston Texans for the sporting news. Looking ahead to 2024. There are mixed thoughts about, they are, they feel like at best, are the third best team in the division right now. Lots of unknowns. Got the new head coach, got a whole lot of turnover, Geno Smith returns, and it sounds like just the bits that I've paid attention to the offseason that Mike McDonald has given confidence to Geno Smith, but hasn't been overly enthusiastic about Geno Smith. I wouldn't be excited about Sam Howell as a prospect to replace him, so you're going to have to go with steady Geno. What are sort of, what kind of our expectations this year? Are you, are fans expecting them to kind of stay on the same track they were? Are they expected to improve over their nine-win season, over the last season? Well, this is the toughest thing to call, because like, what is a new head coach work? Like, how many wins or losses is a new head coach worse? Like, in theory, they're getting a defensive upgrade here at McDonald, and at least as far as their reputation is concerned, a big upgrade at offensive coordinator with Ryan Brubb going from Washington, where he was great with Pennx. He's replacing Shane Waldron, who's now in Chicago, who is, just listen, if you go purely by the numbers, is an average play caller in the NFL. And obviously, there's a lot of differences between the two levels and whatnot, but Grubb arguably one of the best play callers in college with all the last couple of years, just really turned that Huskies offense into some things. Entertaining to watch that USC Washington came, was one of the most fun that I've had watching before, on the last year, I think. Who knows? They could be terrible. It could not work out at all. It all depends on if they buy in, if they really, if they believe in this, and they are really motivated to not finish in third place in that division, because it's a really high bar that's set there, like, they're not going to beat the Niners this year, you're just not. They've won six games in a row, pretty handily, none of them are far. They're just loaded. They're just loaded on both sides of the ball. The Rams have potential, but only if Brad, only if Stafford's healthy. And then you've got the Cardinals, the Cardinals and the Seahawks, Cardinals in year two of their kind of rebuild, where there is optimism, and this year there is uncertainty for the Seahawks. How would you view those games against the Cardinals this year? Are they, are they should wins? Are they, we're not sure? Are they considered challenges on, on, on their schedule? I think they should both be wins for Seattle, but I've been saying that for 12 years now and that they're never both wins. It's always like, you know, something crazy is going to happen. These games are like, probably the hardest to predict of any, like, especially the ones in Arizona. It's going to be insane. It's very difficult to project what'll happen. I did, I did say take the, the, the money line in that, in the week 18 game, like, they're going to find a way. It'll be one point to do something crazy like happening against the Eagles, but they should be. It's a much better roster. Like I get Kyle Murray probably has a higher ceiling than Gino, but I, aside from Harrison, like who is he, who's he going to third crew now? Like I'm going to throw three guys in Harrison and make somebody else beat me. I just think the Cardinals need more help. They need more weapons and they're, they're not ready to compete with most teams. Like Murray will make them interesting, he'll, he'll, he'll make sure they can't get blown out most weeks, I think, but they're just a really, really big gap between them and Seattle as far as town goes. And if McDonald is as good as advertised, those should, should both be wins for Seattle. Hopefully I'll be surprised, I'll be pleasantly surprised if that is the case though. What do you think the Seahawks floor and ceiling is in terms for wins this year? What range do you expect to see? I think the floor is eight and nine. It's still, like I said, it's a pretty good roster. They've won nine games, two years in a row, aside from losing lagging here, there's no like massive, Oh, how are they going to replace what Jamal Adams did? Like, yeah, that's not a good news. They'll sign an inter player. That's how they'd replace Jamal Adams. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think eight wins and then 10 wins is probably their ceiling. I said 11 last year, I'm not willing to be that confident this year just because it usually takes a while for the scheme to like get in like, yes, occasionally you have to me go Ryan's like, of course, your head coach who has a lot of success. That's really rare. That's one in a million. That actually happens. Usually it's the second year where you see, Oh, things start to click and they catch it. That would happen with the Ravens defense Donald was there the last two years as a defensive court mayor and it was like, I believe like an average like slightly above average defense in 2020 and then all of a sudden last year, they're the best defense by miles. They're like every single stat, they're dominant. Every stat that matters, they're way ahead of everybody else. That was very impressive to like to do that in as short amount of time as he did. So he had like a season and a half by the time we've one started, that was the best defense in the league. Like it wasn't even close. That's a big ask for him to do that twice in a row. Can you make two of the best defenses in the league in like three years? I don't know if that's possible, but as long as they, if they get a significant boost, which right now would just be yet from really bad to average, if you get that, I would be happy with it. You have an average defense. I don't have any one part of the game cost you the game, you know, you can't have what happened. I think this was two seasons ago, Josh Jacobs just goes right up the middle, runs the ball down their throat, you know, over time, like a 70 yard touchdown, or you can't have that happen, you know, and you can't have a covered lap on the back end like there were so many of last year, especially the beginning of the year and the safety room. And that's something that happened every year. The DBs were never on the same page the first three weeks of the season under Pete Carroll and made no sense to me, but they out there, it always took a month for them to figure things out. Hey, by then you're one and two, and now you have to win every game for the rest of the year to stay headed, it's just, it's a hard thing to close that up. So as long as they can get to average this year defensively, I'll be happy. And I expect the offense to be good, despite the offensive line being what it is. I think you just rely on Ryan Grub being able to call his way around that, even though it was the opposite dynamic at Washington, he had probably the best offensive line in the country. Now he has probably the worst offensive line in the NFL. So that's a pretty big ask for any coordinator to overcome. But you have to hope they're paying him and like that's what he's asked to do. Hopefully he has a solution for that. And with that, we will wrap up this edition of the rise up to your podcast. The best star of Cardinals talk on the web, our opponent preview show about the Seattle Seahawks with Tim Weaver, former Seahawks wire managing editor now covering the Texans for the sporting news. We'll be back again soon, Tim. I really appreciate the time as we have every year in and who knows what happened next to me, but I'll bring you back off for another preview next year. Hey, Tim, thanks for that. That'll wrap up this edition of the show. We'll be back again soon. Thanks for listening as always. Cross over to new possibilities with the first ever Buick Invista. Now with short line Buick, refined, versatile, intuitive, tech friendly, cargo, loving and best of all, Invista is fun to drive. The flowing exterior of the Invista is easy on the eyes and inside you will experience a quiet ride thanks to quiet tuning with active noise cancellation, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and wireless charging will keep you connected. 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