This Weekend in Sports

The Seattle Seahawks start the regular season playing against the Rams in St.Louis while the Mariners take on the Colorado Rockies at Safeco Field in Seattle.

The Seattle Seahawks will still be without one of the legions of boom in Kam Chancellor who is still holding out. Also, we will see how Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman will do coming back from injuries. Knowing them it will be no problem at all. I am sure the Rams will start off testing the Seahawks secondary to see how good shape they are actually in. It would be nice to get a turnover early since it likely will be a close game.

The Seahawks running game will be different this season behind Marshawn Lynch since both backs are gone.  Christian Michael was traded to the Dallas Cowboys while Robert Turbin was released because of injury; however, he was signed by the Cleveland Browns. Beast mode’s primary back up will be Fred Jackson who will come in on third downs in the same manner as Turbin has done in the years he was with the Seahawks. Obviously the Seahawks felt that neither Michael’s or Turbin were the heir apparent to  Lynch. Jackson is older than Lynch so he is a stop game to help out the running game this year. Depending on Lynch the Seahawks most likely draft a running back early in next year’s draft, sign or trade for a veteran running back like in the same manner getting Lynch. I figure they most likely do both sign a veteran and draft a running back. Also, this may depend on how third running back Thomas Rawls does as well. He could be a real find like the Seahawks have found since Pete Carroll has been coach.

Continue on the offense is how the Seahawks will use Jimmy Graham at tight end, and outside as a receiver along with Tyler Lockett as the return man and receiver. Those two will play a big part of the Seahawks improved offense. The Seahawks should be better on third downs and the red zone. All we can hope for is that the offensive line can protect Wilson much better. This being Wilson’s fourth season I believe we should see even more improvement from him since he is maturing as a quarterback, and has more weapons as well.

I expect the Seahawks defense will stay about the same but if it does not the offense should help out enough to compensate for the defense. Most likely the offense will be at top speed in the middle of the season while starting off slowly. I see the Seahawks going back to the Super Bowl.

The Mariners should be looking at sweeping the Rockies at home this weekend since they are one of the worst teams in baseball. I know funny thing to say when the Mariners have been struggling most of the season; however, they have been doing much better in September as far as the offense goes. The starting pitching has continued it’s up and downs but generally been good. The Mariners primarily split the series against the Rangers because they could not score enough runs.  The bullpen seems to be doing better since the designated for assignment and then the trade of Fernando Rodney to the Chicago Cubs, and Tom Wihelmsen made close again.

The season is coming to a close pretty soon with about three weeks remaining. It will be an interesting off season with the hiring of a new general manager. I guess we will see if the Mariners will hire the new general manager in these last weeks of September or in October. In either case I am sure we will see some changes happening to the roster before spring training. Could be in the same manner as when the Seahawks brought in Pete Carroll and John Schneider. At this point we have no idea whether Lloyd will return as manager or not. It will depend a lot in the general manager and who he may know and like to bring in. He may decide to keep Lloyd for one more season depending on the results. One thing for sure the Mariners management expects a quick turnaround from this season. So we say now Go Seahawks! Go Mariners!