Immediately following Sunday's game, my first reaction was, "after a showing like that, somebody has to get fired." And while I'll get to who I think is a reasonable candidate for being fired (or, if we're talking about a play, cut), even if there were no single person who might warrant being fired, someone should be fired regardless, just to shake things up, just to show every other person or player that doing enough to not get fired is not good enough.
This isn't a football thing so much as it is a business thing, a people management thing. When dealing with human error, you basically have to ways to approach fixing it: the hug or the whip. Sometimes it's best to give the person a hug (figuratively or literally), treat them with kid gloves, and tell them that it'll be ok. That is not this time. This is a time you bring out the whip. This is the time you pull a Jimmy Johnson and cut a player, in front of all of his teammates, on the flight home after a road loss. After a showing like that, the Seahawks need to be whipped into shape.
Candidate 1: Ryan Plackemeier. Plack had a tough year punting last year. I heard Ian Furness say today that he was worst in the league in two of the three major punting stats (average yards is one, not sure what the other one is). More so, he would regularly make poor punts at crucial times and killed the Seahawks in the battle for field position. Last year's ire was directed at the long snapping problems. I don't think he'll have that luxury this year. Yesterday he had punts of 31, 22, 22, and 39 yards. That's awful. One more point: Plack tore a pectoral muscle lifting weights over the summer. Why is a kicker lifting weights heavy enough that it's possible to tear a pec? That was a poor decision, one that I can't imagine the team encouraged, which hurt the team in terms of its ability to prepare on special teams, and it hurt him by allowing another punter like Reggie Hodges to come in and show that he can boot the ball just as well as Plack. A meaner, more cold-blooded coach may have cut Plackemeier after Sunday. If Plack has a second bad game this week even a nice guy like Holmgren may be forced to get rid of him.
I'm going to list a few more people, but unlike Plackemeier I don't actually think any of them should be cut. These are more just me venting about a poor showing.
Candidate 2: Courtney Taylor and Logan Payne.
Let's be real here: Neither of these two can hold onto the ball. I've pulling for Payne, but he can't hold onto balls in games. In preseason both this year and last year he seems to almost make a catch more often than he actually makes a catch. In his one big reception yesterday he coughed up the ball immediately after catching it and was fortunate the ball rolled out-of-bounds. Taylor also seems to have problems catching the ball. I'm not sure what the coaches see in Taylor that makes them so excited about his potential. Payne is a backup so I don't know how much you can really expect of him, but Taylor is supposed to be the starter while Deion Branch rehabs, and he isn't doing anything. I'll get into the receiver situation more when I post about Burleson, but for now I'll just say that those two aren't contributing much.
Candidate 3: Kelly Jennings, or whoever was supposed to give him help with Lee Evans
Damn, did Jennings ever get torched by Evans. To be fair, Evans is a really good, really fast receiver, not to mention the Bills number one receiver, and Jennings is our number two corner. But it was obvious early on that the Bills were going to pick on Jennings with Evans and the Seahawks didn't adjust.
Candidate 4: Rob Sims
This guy seems to get worse each season. In 2006 he filled in well once Spencer took over center for Tobeck. He regressed over the 2007 season, and yesterday he was repeatedly blown up. I know he was lining up against the massive Marcus Stroud, but I'm pissed and am looking to point fingers. Make a play, Rob.
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