Seahawks Insider has changed blogging systems and the URL. Please go here to check out the new site.

Make sure to update any bookmarks or RSS feeds you had pointing to our old system as they will no longer work.

New blog URL: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/seahawks
New RSS feed: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/seahawks/feed
New Atom feed: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/seahawks/feed/atom

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.

=> Read more!

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.

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.

=> Read more!

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.

=> Read more!

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.

=> Read more!

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.

=> Read more!

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).

=> Read more!

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.

=> Read more!

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.

=> Read more!

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.

=> Read more!