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We talked to Seattle Seahawks general manager Tim Ruskell for about a half hour this morning on several topics with training camp only a day away.

First, on the Aaron Curry front, Ruskell said the two sides are continuing to negotiate and he’d like to have Curry in camp on Friday, particularly because of the important role Curry is expected to play on Seattle’s defense this year.

However, there is no deal in place as of today. Only seven of the 32, first-round picks have agreed to terms with teams at this time.

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BY ERIC D. WILLIAMS
The News Tribune

The Seahawks Seahawks reached an agreement with second round draft pick Max Unger on Wednesday, and the rookie offensive lineman is expected to be signed and ready to participate in the team’s first day of camp on Friday.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it is believed that Unger’s deal is a four-year contract valued at just under $4 million, $1.95 million of which is guaranteed.

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They are numbers not mentioned often, but when looked at make for an interesting conversation.

Of the past 10 Super Bowl champions, only half of the team’s offenses ranked in the Top 10 in rushing during the regular season. The 2007 New York Giants had the highest ranking at 4th overall, followed by the 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers (5th), the 2000 Baltimore Ravens (5th), the 1999 St. Louis Rams (5th) and the 2004 New England Patriots (7th).

Three teams, the 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers (23rd overall), the 2003 New England Patriots (27th) and the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (27th), ranked in the bottom third in rushing during the regular season, but still managed to hoist the Lombardi Trophy at the end of the season.

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The Brett Favre watch appears to be over.

Jay Glazer of Fox Sports is reporting that Favre called Minnesota head coach Brad Childress to let him know that he would not be joining the team and will remain retired.

According to sources, Favre came to the conclusion in the last couple days that he did not have enough left in the tank to grind through a 19th season in the NFL. Sage Rosenfels and Tarvaris Jackson will now compete for the starting quarterback job for the Vikings.

Minnesota is considered a Super Bowl contender this season, and the addition of Favre was considered by some NFL observers the final piece that would put them over the top.

The Seahawks will travel to Minnesota to take on the Vikings on Nov. 22.

Here’s the schedule for the first two weeks of training camp leading up to the first preseason game on Aug. 15 at San Diego. For open practices you must register at Seahawks.com to attend. I’m not sure if there’s any spots available at this point. However, if you can’t get into one of the open practices at the VMAC, you can attend one of the open practices being held at the University of Washington on Friday, Aug. 7 and Tuesday, Aug. 18. Both practices begin at 6:45 p.m.

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The Sporting News puts the Seattle Seahawks in its cross hairs in this team report heading into this week’s camp. Here’s what an anonymous source had to say about this year’s team.

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At 372 receptions, T.J. Houshmandzadeh has the most catches by any receiver in the NFL in the last four seasons.

And at 6-foot-1, 200 pounds, he’s the big receiver the Seahawks have been looking for. Former NFL quarterback Hugh Millen compares his skill set to Chris Carter – not a bad person to be compared to, as the sure-handed receiver is likely headed to the Hall of Fame.

Houshmandzadeh’s presence should open up things for the rest of Seattle’s receivers, as I discussed in an earlier post. He’ll make things easier for tight end John Carlson, as defenses will have to pay attention to Houshmandzadeh inside the seams of the defense, leaving Carlson with the possibility of one-on-one coverage on the other side.

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Greetings from Safeco Field, I just got a call from rather upset Eric Williams, who hasn't been able to post the Deon Butler signing.

We got the email from the Hawks earlier in the day, but Eric, who's timing rivals that of Wally Pipp, is in eastern Washington on a little vacation with the family before training camp begins and his family life is over. He happened to be away from his computer. So he kindly asked me to post it.

Here's the press release:

The Seattle Seahawks have signed wide receiver Deon Butler to a multi-year deal, the team announced this morning.

Butler was Seattle’s third round selection (91st overall) in this past April’s NFL Draft out of Penn State. Butler closed out his college career as the school’s all-time leader with 179 receptions, finished second with 2,771 receiving yards and third with 22 touchdowns.

Butler is the fifth Seahawks draft pick to sign with the club.

That leaves first-round Aaron Curry and second-rounder Max Unger unsigned.

The Seattle Seahawks apparently are not totally sold on long snapper Bryan Pittman.

Team sources confirmed the Seattle Seahawks have signed veteran long snapper Kevin Houser.

Mike Triplett of the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that Houser traveled to Seattle for a visit.

Houser, who turns 32 next month, spent nine seasons playing for the Saints.

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Seattle Seahawks head coach Jim Mora and legendary mountain climber Ed Viesturs, who recently climbed Mount Rainier together, have a conversation about the similarities between mountain climbing and football, along with other topics in this video, provided courtesy of Plum TV.

He finished 24-of-27 on field goal attempts with a long of 51 yards. He made every extra point attempt. And he finished tied for second in the league in touchbacks, kicking the ball in the end zone 31 percent of the time.

Teams only averaged 25.6 yards a return on kicks against Seattle, good enough for second in the league.

Pretty good stats, huh? And particularly not the numbers you would expect from a kicker competing for his job heading into training camp. But that’s the position Olindo Mare finds himself in heading into Seattle’s 2009 training camp.

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Former Seattle P-I columnist Jim Moore wrote a nice feature on Seattle Seahawks receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh for Sports Northwest magazine. In the article we learn a little bit more about the team’s newest receiver, including his struggles with motivation in attending high school before finally earning his GED, which allowed him to enroll in Cerritos Community College to play football and ultimately get noticed by head coach Dennis Erickson at Oregon State.

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Well, the answer to that last season was a resounding no, as Arizona Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald pretty much did what he wanted last season, including a playoff run that was the most productive in terms of sheer numbers by an NFL receiver.

The Seahawks faced Fitzgerald twice in 2008, and the numbers weren’t pretty. Fitzgerald finished with 15 receptions, 281 yards and two touchdowns in two games against Seattle.

Several other talented receivers had big days against Seattle, including Buffalo’s Lee Evans (4 receptions, 102 yards) Green Bay’s Greg Jennings (5 receptions, 84 yards, touchdown), San Francisco’s Isaac Bruce (4 receptions,153 yards), the New England Patriots’ Wes Welker (12 receptions, 134 yards), Arizona’s Anquan Boldin (13 receptions, 186 yards) Dallas tight end Jason Witten (9 receptions 115 yards, TD) and Tampa Bay’s Antonio Bryant (6 receptions, 115 yards TD).

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BY ERIC D. WILLIAMS
The News Tribune
Seattle Seahawks fans looking for a new way to support their team will have another opportunity to do so beginning Tuesday.

Washington State Lottery officials are expected to announce a partnership between the state agency and the Seahawks Tuesday morning, introducing a new scratch game that will use the team’s logo.

Called Seahawks Winning Play Scratch, the agency is billing the new game as the first professional football scratch ticket available in the country.
The tickets can be purchased in local stores beginning on Tuesday and also will be sold at the team’s home games at Qwest Field this season.

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Starting today up and until training camp, each day we’ll look at an aspect of the Seattle Seahawks that could help them improve on last year’s 4-12 campaign.

Today we start with Seneca Wallace, and how the Seahawks can use that dynamic quarterback’s playmaking abilities to add punch to the offense.

Walllace, 28, started eight games for Seattle last season, with the Seahawks finishing 3-5 in those contests.

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Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Gus Bradley has said that Seattle will be a 4-3, cover-2 team with its base defense, but that they will show a lot of other looks as well, including a 3-3 scheme.

With that in mind, I thought we’d take a look at the 3-3 scheme and talk about the benefits of the Seahawks running this type of defense.

A lot of high school and college teams have switched to more of a 3-3 scheme defensively for a couple reasons. First, the 3-3 allows for defenses to get more guys with speed on the field to defend against the proliferation of spread offenses in both high school and college. Secondly, it’s hard to find talented defensive linemen in high school and college, and the 3-3 allows high school and college teams to play more of those speedy linebacker-safety-type athletes.

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Seattle Seahawks running back T.J. Duckett joined KJR’s Mitch Levy this morning to talk about the upcoming season. Duckett said he’s looking forward to expanding his role as a short-yardage back, and believes the zone blocking system fits his style as a one-cut, downhill runner.

“I would love to have more carries,” Duckett said. “I’m not just wanting to settle with being a short-yardage back just because of my size. So yeah, definitely, mentally I’m ready to compete for that.

"Physically I’m ready, so it’s just a matter of now going into camp and working. Working and showing what I can do. And trying – I don’t want to say knocking the stigma of a big back off – but showing I can be more of a guy who runs inside the 20s or a first and second-down guy. And give the coaches more confidence that I can make things happen.”

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FoxSports.com’s Adam Schein believes the glass is half empty for the Seattle Seahawks in 2009, and that the best Seattle has to hope for is an 8-8 season. He points to Walter Jones’ health as the key, and believes Jones is not 100 percent. And if Jones can’t come back, Schein says the team will struggle to protect quarterback Matt Hasselbeck.

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Months of training by toting a weighted pack up hills and 50 flights of stairs in and around the New York area proved enough training for Roger Goodell. The 50-year-old NFL league commissioner successfully ascended the 14,411 peak of Mount Rainier Wednesday morning, along with Seattle Seahawks head coach Jim Mora, Hawks CEO Tod Leiweke and the rest of the group – eight climbers and four guides in all – led by world-renowned mountain climbers Peter Whittaker and Ed Viesturs.

Viesturs took the photo of Goodell here and two more below, which include a shot of Goodell and Mora heading up the mountain, along with a group shot on Rainier. The photos are provided courtesy of the Seattle Seahawks.

Called the Climb for the Community, the event served as a fundraiser for the United Way.

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Mount Rainier is enveloped in a haze of clouds in this photo by TNT photographer Janet Jensen.

Seattle Seahawks head coach Jim Mora, league commissioner Roger Goodell and the rest of the climbing party are scheduled to reach the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. Both are scheduled to talk about their climbing experience this afternoon. We’ll have a report from that press availability later today.

For those wanting more information on the Climb for the Community, which benefits United Way, you can follow their progress here, or check in on daily updates from league spokesperson Greg Aiello.

NFL writer Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times also is on the trip, and provides a short interview with Goodell here.

Clare Farnsworth of Seahawks.com writes about the trip up Mt. Rainier here.

ESPN’s Mike Sando breaks down some of the main story lines of the NFC West.

John Morgan of Field Gulls weighs in on the Deion Branch trade three years later.

ESPN’s John Clayton talks with ESPN 710’s Brock and Salk about the importance of Colin Cole and Brandon Mebane in establishing Seattle’s ability to stop the run in this audio link.

Seattle Seahawks fullback Owen Schmitt was arraigned in Black Diamond on July 2 for a charge of suspicion of DUI in June and pleaded not guilty.

Schmitt is scheduled to appear in a pre-trial hearing on July 22.

Seahawks linebacker Leroy Hill will need to get after the quarterback on third down in 2009 like he did here in this playoff game against Washington.

Pat Kirwan, a former league personnel executive who writes for NFL.com, penned an interesting article a couple weeks ago that I filed away in my memory bank. Kirwan takes a look at the makeup of the league’s best third down defenses. The list offers few surprises, with Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Minnesota, Chicago and Tennessee all topping the list.

However, I think this list is important because third down, as Kirwan writes, is considered the money down in pro football – either you get off the field and bring a momentum-gaining drive to a halt, or a productive offense executes and continues to march down field, eventually putting some points on the scoreboard.

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I’ll be taking some time off the next couple weeks to recharge the batteries before training camp begins. However, I will continue to post on the blog when Hawks news rises to the surface, including any rookie contract signings, along with updates on the Owen Schmitt situation. I also plan on doing some analysis on Seattle’s struggles on third down both offensively and defensively last season, along with the team possibly using a 3-3 look up front defensively.

Here are few, Seahawk-related links to check out today.

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