By Frank Cooney, The Sports Xchange
There is more synergy than meets the eye among the three top sports news events Wednesday: The Seattle Seahawks’ Super Bowl championship parade, College Football’s National Signing Day for high school stars, and the list of NFL Combine invitees reported by The Sports Xchange.
Five years ago, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, then head coach at Southern California, was immersed in National Signing Day with the Trojans, just as he was for the previous eight years.
His ability to find and sign the best high school stars was incredible, evidenced in USC’s recruiting classes ranking No. 1 in the nation three of his last six years there.
The knowledge gained from those college recruiting wars, the in-depth understanding of so many young players he either signed or missed, was certainly put to use as he eyeballed prospects during the last four NFL Combines and made picks, trades and other signings based extraordinary insight about those young players.
And the results of all that put Carroll, general manager John Schneider, and the players they gathered, on parade Wednesday as the Seahawks celebrated their Super Bowl win.
Carroll and Schneider’s input and impact was so thorough that only four players they inherited in 2010 were still on the Super Bowl roster.
Using that old college personnel homework, Carroll extracted an extraordinary amount of talent from all levels of the draft, most notably starting quarterback Russell Wilson (round three, 2012), All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman (round five, 2011) and linebackers Bobby Wagner (round two, 2012), and K.J. Wright (round five, 2011).
And that was after Carroll’s spectacular debut draft with Seattle in 2010 when he netted five eventual starters — tackle Russell Okung (first round), safety Earl Thomas (first), wide receiver Golden Tate (second), cornerback Walter Thurmond (fourth) and safety Kam Chancellor (fifth).
And Carroll orchestrated one of the most important trades in franchise history when he snagged Buffalo Bills running back Marshawn Lynch, whose talents he knew all too well from Lynch’s time in the Pac-10 at Cal.
Now all eyes are on Carroll to see how he pushes the Seahawks into the future.
The NFL is noted as a copycat league, and it will be interesting to see if and how other franchises — including those that continued to flounder as the Seahawks ascended to the top — react to Seattle’s success.
It will be equally interesting to see how the Seahawks move forward as their young team bumps into the financial realities of successful players wanting new and bigger contracts.
Absent Carroll’s ability to maintain the same level of intimate knowledge of the annual wave of young players entering the league, it is unlikely he still be as aggressive or as successful mining the best nuggets each year.
Still, his whole style — including signing, motivating and coaching — is more reminiscent of a college atmosphere than one that might fit a roster of seasoned veterans.
So will he continue to reload — as he did at USC and during his first four years in Seattle — or fight the annual financial battle while trying to maintain a core of his more desirable veterans?
From an owner’s perspective, maintaining a talented, young team is obviously financially desirable. That avoids the situation the Baltimore Ravens faced after winning the previous Super Bowl. They were stuck with an expensive, veteran team. After retirements and free agent losses, the Ravens struggled to an 8-8 season in 2013.
The Seahawks have 15 players ready to become unrestricted free agents this year, including defensive linemen Michael Bennett and Tony McDaniel; Tate and cornerback Walter Thurmond. Wide receiver Doug Baldwin will be a restricted free agent.
Linebacker Malcolm Smith, the Super Bowl MVP and the man who grabbed the deciding interception in the NFC Championship Game win, will be an unrestricted free agent next year, along with cornerback Richard Sherman and safety Earl Thomas.
And within the next two years, the Seahawks must offer quarterback Russell Wilson a contract more realistic than the sub-$700,000, bargain-basement deal they got away with this season.
Even as the Seahawks stare at that Super Bowl ring on their fingers, the young, cost-efficient stars will become the subject of hard financial decisions. The college-type atmosphere in the locker room that made the Seahawks so exciting in 2013 will endure the reality check of pro football as a business.
And while the unusually abundant youth on the present roster buys time, it will be interesting to see if Carroll continues his frenetic pace in identifying young talent. He must decide where that important fulcrum point is between reloading and renegotiating.
Meantime, he was literally able to parade his success in Seattle on Wednesday, even as next year’s top draft picks were being named for the Combine and future stars were selecting their colleges.
Seattle Seahawks unrestricted free agents
Position, name, years of experience
DE Michael Bennett, 5
CB Brandon Browner, 4
TE Kellen Davis, 6
OT Breno Giacomini, 6
K Steven Hauschka, 5
QB Tarvaris Jackson, 8
FS Chris Maragos, 4
TE Anthony McCoy, 4
DT Tony McDaniel, 8
DE Clinton McDonald, 4
OT Paul McQuistan, 7
FB Michael Robinson, 8
OLB O’Brien Schofield, 4
WR Golden Tate, 4
CB Walter Thurmond, 4
Restricted Free Agents 2014
WR Doug Baldwin, 3
C Lemuel Jeanpierre, 3
SS Jeron Johnson, 3