On the Sidelines S2E39: Mariners get new manager, Seahawks humiliated

This is On the Sidelines with FOX 13. All right, welcome everybody to another edition of On the Sidelines. I'm Chris Swanson. I'm here with Dante Jackson, D-Jack. Ethan McReynolds, still on the sideline, on the trainer's table. He'll be back in a couple weeks. We wish him a well and speedy recovery. Get back soon, Ethan. We need you, Ethan. We need you to know how to change the monitor graphic behind us. Okay, a lot to get to, Dante, or should I say a lot to complain about. Let's get with the Seahawks right away. Monday night football, the bright lights. Such a good showing against the Chiefs. So solid. And then suddenly an embarrassing loss, their worst loss at home. Since the Green Bay Packers in 2024 also had a bad one that year to the Buffalo Bills. My goodness, what happened? Red zone and third down. That's what happened. The red zone reared its ugly head once again. For the Seahawks, and I was one of those ones that bought into the hype of the Kansas City win and thought this team was ready to make a run and had turned a corner, but they went right back to their inconsistent ways on third down, and the defense is Charles Barkley, terrible, in the red zone. I don't. The Chicago Bears were four for four with four touchdowns in the red zone versus this defense. The Seahawks were 1 of 11 on third down versus the Chicago Bears. Therein lies the game right there. The Seahawks were dominated like I've never seen a Mike McDonald team dominated before. And you'll get a lot of people that talk about the offense and the offensive coordinator and Sam Donald. When you lose four of six. It falls on everybody. There's enough blame to go around, and that's what I wanted to start with you, Chris. The blame game, the blame pie. If you had to cut it up, where would the blame lie, in your opinion? I think the pie is pretty well split amongst a lot of things. I will be one of the people to throw a blame. I know Brian Fleury is a great target that everybody's taking shots at today, but watching the replay of the game last night when I got home, Some of the play calling on offense was just driving me nuts. I mean, you had a first and goal at the nine-yard line on one run, and it was where you were down 7-0 and you had to answer. You had first and goal at the nine, tunnel screen to your running back. It's a six-yard loss. Call that play at the 48-yard line on second and seven, not first and goal at the nine. They just came down the field and punched you in the mouth pretty much to open the game after you went three and out. 17 plays. Yeah, just walked on you, including a fourth-down conversion in that. So you've got to be able to answer back, and their only answer, once they have that tunnel screen, six-yard loss on the tunnel screen, next thing you know, it's second and it's second and goal from the 15-yard line. And I looked, it was in the sports office down there with Mark Rosen and Shannon Carr-Cohen. And I just said, whoop, this is a field goal drive. And then they get the field goal, they're down 7-3, and it just, that was just kind of how the rest of the night went. They trailed, it was like they flirted with being close, but they trailed and... Looking at that and just kind of the, hmm, the three and outs. They had, and I made sure I got this right, only had five first downs in the first half. They went three and out three times in the first half. Another drive was only four plays. So it was just quickly out. And it wasn't just some three and outs. It was like no gain, one yard, two yard. You know, next thing you know, it's third and eight, incomplete pass. We're punting. And I just, I feel like. We got Ryan Grubb again as the offensive coordinator. Yes. And if I'm being honest with myself, and I think you're exactly right when you talk about the Kansas City game kind of gave us a whitewash. You know, they turned it around. If we're being honest, the offense has been mediocre at best every game. Yes. Except for maybe the Chargers game. But even that, because it was a win there, just kind of held. It was able, you know, everybody was able to hide things because winning cures a lot of ills. But. It just seems like we got an offensive coordinator that maybe they don't have the weapons that they had last year. Cooper Kupp has just not done a whole lot. Rashid Shaheed obviously didn't play last night's game. Addition by subtraction, he hadn't done anything anyway. I mean, he didn't play, yet he contributed about as much as he's contributed the previous seven games. Oh, wow. And I'm not going to say that's entirely his fault. They're not finding ways to get him the ball. They are finding ways to get Jackson Smith and Jigba the ball, and thank goodness for that. But this is a team with one wide receiver. And every great offense, every great Super Bowl-winning team has to have multiple weapons on there in the passing game, and you don't have that right now. Darnold took some hits. The offensive line didn't play good. They didn't run good. They didn't try to run good. They didn't push the ball and get first downs on the ground. The rushing total is boosted by the fact Sam Darnold ran twice for 20 yards. Not good. Yes, and I wrote it down also. I wrote a few notes down. This offense goes east-west, not north-south. Yes, yes. They're not on, I'm tired of seeing the screens and the pop passes. And the sideways passes and trying to beat them to the outside. This is a defensive team. And I'm not a coach, but every defensive team that I know of, they run the ball and they're physical on offense. And that's not the game plan or the scheme that they showed last night. Uh, Sam Darnold had happy feet all night long. Uh, it looked like a replay of the Denver game. Yes. Now, uh, with all those things being said, though, Chris, uh, you know, really listen to me here because I still don't blame the offense. This is a defensive team with a championship defense. All right. They gave their selves, which is a red flag where I'm from. You don't give yourself a nickname, but they gave their selves a nickname, the dark side. They turned the lights off, but last night they got lit up. And I don't want to hear nothing from anybody that says, well, they do a bad game. No, no, when you give yourself a nickname like the dark side, you turn the lights off every game. When you think about those LOB defenses or the Ravens defenses, they had Trent Dilfer. They didn't have offense to speak of, but when the defense needed to score, they scored. When the defenses needed to stop, they stopped, okay? The defense has not been good, and they were terrible last night, if you ask me. And they stopped the run, but they didn't stop the running touchdowns. DeAndre Swift with three rushing touchdowns, 4-4-4 in the red zone. No, you don't give yourself a nickname if you're going to go out there with a performance like that. Now, I have high standards for this defense. As you should. They're a good defense, okay? But if you want to be great or you want to give yourself a nickname, You've got to be historic. You have to make those stops regardless of what the offense does. You've got to hold those. When they turn the ball over, you've got to get out of there with three, not sixes. Okay, and that's my problem. People will talk about Fleury, and I can talk about him later. But right now, we give much props to this defense. We say it's a historic defense. I can't tell right now. I think you're spot on about giving up the touchdowns. There was also a 39-yard run that was in there when they needed a stop. They gave up a 17-play drive, Chris. And people want to talk about, I go all the way back to the Denver game and the Commanders game. Denver game, Bo Nix had back-to-back 10 play drives, and I talked about it three podcasts ago. And everybody said, well, let's shut him down the rest of the game. But he did enough to win that game, and they just held on. It would have been a different game plan if it would have been a close game. It wasn't close because the offense couldn't do nothing. 10-plus play drives from Bo Nix, unacceptable. I'm going to have to bullshit. A 17-play drive and a 10-play drive from Caleb Williams, unacceptable. For a defense that has – let's take – hey, if you want to be a mediocre or just a good defense, I better not see you calling yourself a dark side again. Okay? It was disappointing because so many times we've seen that defense at least buckle down and make a stop and force a field goal. Not that time. Not this year. Not this year. That's the problem. That's the difference. Even in the Chargers game, giving up late stuff, it was like – I think we got so used to them constantly getting heat with four guys up front. That's not happening this year. I think that is a roadmap of teams having some time to study, going, okay, what are they doing good? How do we game plan for it? Taking one more receiver out of the pattern, putting a tight end on there, getting that extra blocker, giving that quarterback two extra seconds to throw the ball, which, oh, it's only two seconds. One and a half seconds is more than enough time to make things happen there. And one of the weaknesses we talked about. The preseason of this team was edge, or at least not a weakness, but where we felt that you needed a game changer or some other body at edge. I mean, it's glaring right now. Yes, you can collapse the pocket. Yes, I love the defensive lineman, Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy. But off the edge, you're not jumping. You're not getting home. And, you know, they started pressure rate. That's a loser stat to me. That just means you're not getting sacks, okay? Get home. And this team is not getting home. They got one sack on Caleb Williams last night. Caleb Williams was... Way too comfortable. Even with pressure in his face, he was completing passes. And if I see Josh Jobe, you know, on the backside of a receiver catching the ball one more time, how many times does it take for him to be cooked before the eyes go to him? So, it's just, I, I. I come away from this game just upset and disappointed in this defense. It's the most points they've given up, and they kind of earned it. I think what frustrated me is I'm looking at Chicago going, okay, I know they came in, the eighth-ranked offense. They're not that good. They're not that good. They shouldn't be that good. They were made to look a lot better than they were. And, well, you know, they're a tough team. They're the third best team in the NFC North. Yes. And you know what? Right now the Seahawks are the third best team in the NFC West. If they don't beat the Cardinals next week, that's not going to be the case. And the whole thing of, well, it's early. There's still adjustments to make. It's not early. We're eight games in. We're midseason now. Everything is supposed to start gelling together. And this team looks like a 4-4 team. That's what bothers me. But right now, it's looking like a team that's going to go 9-8 and have to try to sneak into the postseason. And they lost four out of the last six. Yeah. That's the problem. Now, Sam Darnold, except for the opening game, which he left early, I think after two or three plays, he's thrown an interception in every game he's played. He threw another red zone interception. yesterday that got called back because of a hole. They were fortunate on that and he threw a touchdown pass to Cooper Cup. The hole had nothing to do with the play. So he, I mean, Sam Donald, his turnovers and the turnover problem is much, it's documented. You know, so like, and I think and I talked about this four weeks ago. See, that's the problem with me. People say I'm a hot take artist. No, I'm ahead of my time because I'll call it when I see it. I said this defense is going to start to wear down mentally and physically because the offense keeps putting them in a predicament. That is exactly what's happening right now. The defense is depleted because our offense is just futile, okay? And when you keep having to come out there after a turnover or a three and out and you're trying to stop a team like Chicago, it's going to come back to haunt you. This offense is holding the defense back and now... We want to call out Flurry. I'm calling out Mike McDonald. I love Mike McDonald. He is our coach. Make no mistake. But he is the head coach of this team. We cannot say, Flurry threw it here, Flurry threw it there. I told Mike McDonald last year, you got to get on the headset and say, hey, we need to run the ball. You cannot throw up your hands and say, I'm the defensive coach. No, you are the head coach, and you need to take control of this offense and these special teams. Because Jason Myers needs some straightening, too. There's an old saying, there's an old Mike Leachism that he used, and many coaches have said it, but you're either coaching it or allowing it to happen. Yes. It's one of the two. So this is where I feel like looking back last year now, and it's easy to retrospect, and I try not to do this, but it's easy to look back and go, you know, Clint Kubiak did a lot of things to protect Sam Darnold, to minimize those mistakes, to at least help to try to minimize those mistakes. I think not helping is that you basically have one wide receiver on this team. You have one, and thank goodness, But, you know, the Cooper, the stats that I looked, I mean, he's the best receiver. Look at the receptions last night. Cooper had one catch. It was the touchdown last night. One catch. That's a guy you should be depending on. A.J. Barner had two. Shaheed didn't play, as I mentioned. Horton had three. It can't just be JSN, JSN, JSN. Because your running game is not good enough to back that up. It was, you know, enough to hide last year. But, you know, even Shaheed, when he is playing, 16 catches in seven games. It's just, it's a disappearing act that can't afford to be there. It feels like 2024 offense all over again. It feels like Ryan Grubb out there throwing bubble screens, thinking he's playing Oregon State, and it's not the case. Yes. So, you know, we're going to dive into the Seahawks matchup with the Cardinals a little bit more. But just, I think it was an embarrassing game for the Seahawks. Yes. And that's not something we say very much in the last 23 years. And it was disappointing. But you just looked and it's like the little meme face palm thing in your iPhone. It's just kind of that, you know, what, what, what, come on. Yes, the Seahawks ought to be ashamed of themselves for that performance last night. And film's going to be brutal today and it should be. And you know, I had a multitude of notes and reasons for them losing. Wrong place, wrong time, okay? You do not make wholesale changes to your offense on Monday Night Football against a formidable foe like the Chicago Bears. You shuffle your offensive line around. There's nothing you can do about the left tackle. Josh Jones is filling in for injured Charles Cross. You shuffle those people around, and you totally change your whole backfield. When Emmanuel Wilson the week before, and who thought I'd be calling for Emmanuel Wilson? What a time to be alive. 24 yards, 100, 24 carries, 100 yards, and you decide, no, we good. He gets zero carries in last night's game. I saw that. I was like, wait a minute, I don't remember him carrying the ball. And I look at the box score, and I was like, again, the face palm. There's a time and a place, and the time and the place is usually the bye week, not right now. I know you're trying to work Charbonnet back. I get that, but look, that guy actually was running effective. Yes, yes. And Gray Zabel not being at left guard, being shifted over. You know, look, there were some plays that looked like there was some discombobulation on there. Again, I'm going to go back to coaches. That's not protecting the game plan. That's not protecting. Listen, let's minimize what we can do. Because maybe that's a game, if you manage it way better, and I mean way better. Maybe you squeeze out a 24-21, 26-24 type of thing, but it wasn't. I'd love to call it a smack in the face. It was a flat-out punch in the mouth from that opening Bears drive, and it felt that way the whole time. I was producing the show for news. I walked out of the booth and looked at the score. I told everybody in the booth, and I hate to say this, but it was mid-second quarter. I said, this game's over. This game's over. They scored a touchdown before halftime, but it still was split. And the Bears looked like the Seahawks did in previous years. The Bears were young and hungry. Clubber Lang, Rocky III, it's real. And they made a point. They wanted to make a statement on Monday Night Football. And they did. And the juice was palpable. Like, you didn't have anyone for the Seahawks with the kind of juice that the Bears were showing. I mean, they almost decapitated Sam Darnold when he decided to run out of the pocket. He took some hits. Torrey Horton, he probably, he's going to be on the shelf all week for that hit he took. So, I mean, they were out there hitting, and they were, I mean, they were moving, they were running. And Jeffrey Simmons showed us his levels to this. We got Leonard Williams. We have Byron Murphy. But we don't have that guy. Yeah. That guy, I mean, come on. There was an anger that they brewed. I mean, that Jeffrey Simmons, he showed you what a pro bowler, an all-pro, best-in-his-class guy can do. He was a one-man wrecking crew, and he seemed to inspire the rest of his defensive teammates because you had Montez Sweat. Coming off the edge also, he came with a partner. What more can you say about the Chicago defense who came in? They weren't ranked the top five defense in the league. They looked like it to me. That was a great move. And so their acquisition, and I'm not on all 22, so I don't know what our new acquisition, Quentin Nelson, did, but impact. Their acquisition was better than our acquisition. They showed some replays on the broadcast. It looked like they had an ISO cam on Quentin for a while. And they could have been selective editing in there. He just looked like he was lost on a couple of plays. But, look, if you only had a couple days to get your game plan in or to get him integrated in the game plan and what you're doing, it's not the Colts' offense that he's played in his whole career. Yes. So he had to get that. All right, we've got to shift from one disappointment to the other. Dante, let's talk Mariners manager. Oh, man, do we have to? Unfortunately, we'll do what the Mariners did for their search. We'll make it quick and painless. And we'll make it something that there's not going to be any controversy with. The news has come down. They're going to announce a new manager tomorrow. Underwhelming is the first thing I think. We won't spend a ton of time talking about this because there's not a whole lot to talk about on it. Because it's just kind of a... ...type of hire to me. It's uninspiring. I think they got denied by some guys, and they're going to sit there and tell you that they got the guy they wanted. I don't believe that for a second. I think it's just another three words of untruth coming out of Jerry DiPoto's mouth that we're going to see in this presser tomorrow on Wednesday. I just want to say welcome, Jason Kinsler. I don't know the guy, so it's not personal. We all wanted a name and some hope, because that's all we have right now to cling on to with the Mariners organization. He might be one of the better coaches in the future in MLB history. We do not know. The Seahawks kind of went off grid and hired Mike McDonald. We didn't know him. He turned out to be a great coach. So we don't know Jason Kinsler. Uh, Kinsler, uh, I hope. Hopefully, one of my prerequisites was you had to be there. You had to have championship experience if you wanted to be the Mariners manager. And that's who I thought they should hire. I heard he was on the Houston staff. I don't know if it was at the same time. When they were winning championships. Yeah. So I don't know if he has that experience. So if he was there. Mainly in the front office. Yeah, if he had some championship experience, hopefully he can bring that over to the Mariners. I'm willing to give the guy a try. You know, people don't want to come here. I don't know why. The organization needs to look at themselves in the mirror on that subject. But I'm willing to welcome Jason Cansler and give him a chance. Because it can't get any worse than last season, if you ask me. Yeah, no, I think you're right. There's only one way to go. The bump is the only direction. Yes. I mean, I suppose you could get worse theoretically, but not if you want to keep people walking through the turnstiles and selling tickets. And you have a lot of people that believe that, you know, Jerry DePoto hired a young manager, first-time manager, because he wanted to continue to control. Uh, I absolutely believe that, but if he's a tactician and we'll work in the dugout and do the job, then fair enough. Yes. You know, I kind of hope that it's like, you know, maybe this guy talked about like, you know, let me handle the team. And then, you know, I'll, let me handle the team on the field. You handle the team in the office. And as long as we're piling up W's, winning cures all. It's going to take care of a lot of problems. And part of coaching is respect. Yeah. You know, and some coaches walk into the dugout or managers walk into the dugout with that respect, you know, because they have a name, because they have the experience. It seems like Cansler is going to have to work extra hard to kind of garner that respect. From a Mariner squad. I mean, you got some people on the roster that's almost as old as him. I think he's like 36 years old. Because it's a young veteran team. And what have you done? You know, he never played in the majors. He was a baseball player, but he never made it to the majors or at least played. He hasn't been a manager before. So there are some knocks against him. But I'm willing to look outside and go outside of the box and think outside of the box and give this guy a chance. Because the manager, I think, is only good for 8 to 10 wins if they're a really good manager in a season. I think it's the players that have to step up, if you ask me. You've got a good young veteran team that's coming back. And I arose. Rosarena got a one-year tender offer. It's qualifying offers. Basically, when he signs with someone else, the Mariners can get compensation, either a first or second-round draft pick. I think it's a good move to do. I do. But I think not only does he have to win them over, I think he has to do it fairly quick. Because I think it's going to have to be during spring training. The second the pitchers and catchers walk through that gate down in Peoria, that's when he's going to have to start winning over hearts and minds. And, you know, it would help to get off to a... You know, 17-6 type of start. Yes. I mean, that would cure a lot of ills. Yes. So we'll see how it goes, and we'll hear from him tomorrow on Fox 13. Mariners are going to have a press conference at 2 p.m. Let's shift gears real quick to the Kraken. We sang a little praise last week to the Kraken. Yes. They were getting ready to play the Maple Leafs that night. They did go out and win to finish that homestand. Of course, they had a 4-2 lead, did everything humanly possible to get it back away. But they did pull out a win. And then... I kind of ripped on them because they're beating the bum teams. Then they go play the Flames, and they get worked. Their goalie gets knocked out of the game or pulled from the game. And then Grubauer, and then you put Decord in there, and he didn't play much better either. They get smeared 6-2. They're in this weird lull where they have one game in six days, which is odd for an NHL team. Perfect time to make a move. Perfect time to make a move. They bring Shane Wright, which I think has been a disappointment, to say the least, or did not meet expectations. Well, let's talk about that, because I think this organization failed Shane Wright. I would agree. Shane Wright showed promise when he was given that playing time. But you've got to develop him, too. Yes, and they haven't done that. And, you know, like I said, I always, you know, give. The disclaimer that I'm a casual hockey fan. So I don't know the Kraken's roster in hockey enough to really critique. I just know names. I know Shane Wright had promise a couple years ago. And you know what you see on the ice. Okay. And I know Matty Beniers. I haven't heard his name in years. Regressing for three years. Now, what's the difference between Shane Wright and Matty Beniers? To me, as a casual hockey fan, they're both disappointing, if you ask me. So we wanted to trade Shane Wright for the last two years. We wanted to get rid of him and not give this guy a chance. But Matty Beniers just flies under the radar. And people tell me, oh, he's a solid player. He's this and that. He was our first draft pick. He was supposed to be a star. I don't think so. He has regressed, Matty Beniers has regressed every year, unfortunately. It's just been something that's happened. And Shane Wright also traded for Matthew Wood, who's for the Predators, and looking up his numbers. That's a guy, you know, as much as I do follow the NHL. It's not a name I hear a ton. I mean, he's also been an underwhelming player for the Predators, a younger guy. But it's odd to look back when Shane Wright came to the Mariners. The Mariners, sorry. Kraken Mariners, they're almost one and the same sometimes it feels like. But when Wright was drafted and he fell to that number four spot, the Kraken considered, oh, steel, he fell to us. And it's a disappointment, and there was some head shaking, that Arizona at the time, now the Utah Mammoth, took Logan Cooley with that number three pick. Look at Logan Cooley's numbers in three years and look at what Shane Wright's did in three years. And it's night and day. One team, I think, to your point, again, that's a great point you made. One team has developed guys. One team has not developed guys. So that's the Kraken story there. Real quickly to the Sounders. Winless in five straight. They, you know, couldn't be beaten. They were either winning or tying, climbing up the standing. Suddenly, this is how it can flip around so quickly in soccer, suddenly winless in five straight, got smeared by Vancouver the other day. It's 5-1. I mean, they were down 2-0 out of the gate. That's one of the downtroddens with soccer. You get down 2-0 in the ninth minute, you're going, well, okay, it'll be interesting to see how the next 81 minutes goes. I mean, that's a done deal right there. Now they basically lost playoff fate, for lack of a better word. They host LAFC on Decision Day coming up this weekend on Saturday. They need a win. To assure themselves of a playoff spot, if they tie, especially if they lose, they need help, and if they tie, they need help. Can they muster one more? You know what? I guess I'm considered a hot take artist because I say stuff like I want them to lose. This team doesn't deserve to be in the playoffs. We don't want this team in the playoffs. For what? You know, to put deodorant on a pig? Like, you stink. All right? You're not a good team. Let's regroup. And come back stronger next season, all right? I agree. That's what I want to see from the Sounders. Regroup and come back with a better roster next season. You do not deserve to be in the playoffs. A 5-1? 5-1? It wasn't even that close. It was a whippin'. When you're fighting for your playoff life, that tells me everything I need to know about the Sounders. That's it. You don't deserve to be in the playoffs. I think they got beat up. I think they need the extra rest. The MLS schedule is changing soon, so they're going to have to get right back to it. As an aside, shout out to the Seattle Reign, who did make the playoffs on their last day. Congratulations to Jess Fishlock. They honored her, and they snuck into the playoffs, the last team to make it into there. That's a young, up-and-coming franchise, so that's how you build it. Sounders is not the same situation. Where you're established, you're one of the pillars of the MLS, at least you was. And this is not the standard that you set. So those two organizations are different. Whereas the Reign, they got in the last day, I applaud them. The Sounders, you get in the last day, come on now, for what? To make an early exit? Stop it. Um, I do, and this is going to sound like I'm making an excuse. I'm not, but it's going to sound like it. And I'll explain it in a second. I think the mid, I think the whole media, and I would say this with the NWSO as well, but the whole mid year break for the world cup is just, I realized that that is normal in soccer. Um, you know, growing up as I came from the baseball world. That is extremely strange. In fact, when you're playing well, you don't want to stop. You don't want to rain out. You want a double header. You're playing hot. You want to stay hot. You can't wait to get on the field. Football's a little bit more structured. It's every week. But with soccer, it can be all over the place. You take breaks. You take international breaks. You take breaks for U.S. Open Cups. But that was a mighty long break that MLS took for the World Cup, and I just have to wonder if that had some sort of effect on them. On the Sounders? On the Sounders because they were losing, but then they were winning again. It felt like they got their stride. I think Brian Schmetzer is still the best coach. But, you know, maybe it's time to get a little bit younger. And I think the offseason is the time to do that. See, I looked at it the other way because I thought the break was perfect for the Sounders because they were an ailing team. They had lost a few players to injury. I thought it was the perfect time. They lost Alex Rodon. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get healthy again, regroup because they hadn't been playing as well before the break, regroup. Get everybody healthy. Get Jordan Morris back, and then go on your run. And that hasn't happened. It helped to get healthy, but it also, maybe it messes up your rhythm, too. Yeah, I can agree. I can agree with that. All right, Sounders. What a depressing podcast that we're putting here. All right, speaking of depressing, the Arizona Cardinals up next for the Seahawks. We can talk about this one. We've got about 15 minutes to go here. I'll tell you what, if you lose against Arizona, Seattle will be last in the NFC West if that were to happen. Good news is the game's here. Should be a winnable game. But it's also, look, man, nothing's off the table. Anything's possible. The NFL proves one thing again and again. And Arizona did this to the Rams a couple weeks ago. If you do not play your best and someone else plays better than you, you will lose. You can lose. You will lose. Instead of quoting Rocky III, I'm going to quote Rocky IV. It's Ivan Drago. You will lose. Oh, I see. It's how it happens, man. If you're not bringing it, somebody is hungrier and somebody is angrier, and they will get you at the wrong time. And you will get embarrassed. Yeah. And you have an Arizona team who I feel has played teams tough all season long, regardless of the history between these two franchises. And you're coming in with a hot quarterback. At least he was in the fourth quarter. Gardner Minshew. So you're not coming in with Jacoby check down Brissett. All right. So you got to watch that. This Arizona team, I believe, is up and coming. They have all the talent in the world, if you ask me. So I think they found their little stride right now. Hopefully, the Seahawks can stop it. It is in Lumen. But the Seahawks record in Lumen these past two years, as a matter of fact, the past five years. Hasn't been an advantage. It's nothing to write Christmas cards about. So I think you've got to watch out because not only will Arizona come in and beat you, they will embarrass you. It's interesting also, it feels like Arizona's played a little bit better football since they traded away Marvin Harrison Jr. Yes. I would not have thought that would be the case, but the Pride is getting the ball as much. Gardner Minshew is not 2018 Cougs Gardner Minshew where he has that sneaky mobility, but he's still mobile enough. In the NFL, if you can move around the pocket just three feet to your left or right and get a pass off, extend a play for another half second to a second and a half. That's where a quarterback like that can be dangerous. That's where I think that Seahawks front four really has got to get hard. And, you know, Gardner Minshew is also not afraid to throw the ball downfield. Absolutely not. To Michael Wilson, who's a stud. So, you know, if you press it downfield right now, if you're the Arizona Cardinals, I think that's the way to success. Whereas Jacoby Brissett, it seemed like he held the ball a little bit too long. He was too conservative with the ball. Whereas Gardner Minshew is kind of letting it rip and let the chips fall where they may. And he played some good ball. I know it was just a quarter. It was just a quarter and some overtime. But this is his history. You know, he's usually hot for three or four games when he does come in to spell somebody. And then he might come back down to earth. But this would be the second game, a full week of reps. For Arizona, as I started with the first team, they have Trey McBride. They have Michael Wilson, Tyler Algier, look like Walter Payton out there. I mean, so they have the weapons and they have the people in place to shock the Seahawks. And if you're the Seahawks, you can't lick your wounds much longer. You have to get back to it and make sure you're full of attention. It's on beating these Cardinals. I think the Cardinals game that I look back at the most is a game where they didn't even score a touchdown, and that was against the Rams. That was a game that was televised on Fox 13 here locally. Everybody in this area hopefully got a chance to see that. It was a game that the Cardinals, their kicker, six for six on field goals. Okay, you can crud on that if you want. The Hawks did that to the Colts last year. So, I mean, point is, it's effective. Their offense was effective enough. They were effective enough to get to Sean McVay, and they did it in L.A. against the preseason Super Bowl undefeated Rams, who are currently, well, the Seahawks would be looking up at them with a loss as well. There's a lot at stake in a Cardinals game when you're 4-4 because, man, that tilt meter is here. It's like the voting needle meter thing. This way or that way. And right now, if you're the Hawks, you need to be pushing that forward. Yes, and the Hawks have no room to talk about field goals. You had Jason Myers, who broke an NFL record in scoring last season. He kicked so many field goals. And they have a problem this year. Third down, red zone, scoring touchdowns, where they always leave him with three. They wanted a bottom teams in that, scoring touchdowns in the red zone. So, you know, you can't talk about an Arizona team winning on field goals when it seems like that's all the Hawks are doing these days. All right. I heard one – since you're a hot take artist, let me throw this at you. I heard one hot take from a guy on YouTube. It was something that just popped up on my algorithm. It's not a guy I follow. Follow us on YouTube. Not a dude I know, but we are on YouTube as well. Hopefully that finds its way into your algorithm. The guy just basically said Brian Fleury, you know, could be – you know, maybe – Consider firing him in the next couple of weeks. Wow. I don't know if I'd go that far that quick, but it did make me go, okay, if you lose three of the next four. Do you make that change? If you did, your season's over because that means another loss to the Niners. Yes. You know what? You pull that trigger and send that message while the season's there or do you let it ride out? Because right now this is not looking like a playoff team. I hate to say that, but right now it's not. It could be in the end and I could be wrong, but right now it's not. I seem to think differently than others. You know, this is not a Brian Fleury problem. No, I agree. When you lose four of six games. Your head coach has to step in and take your play sheet, you know, and say, hey, we're running these four plays. This will be the staple out offense. Now, you go work with that. All right. Now, you had a mulligan with Ryan Grubb because this organization hired him. Okay. So, somebody wanted him. You had a mulligan with him. I thought that was a PR. All right. Now, okay, you succumb to the pressure of PR. Yeah, absolutely. That's your fault, not anybody else's. Correct. Now you bring in, he was a first-time NFL coordinator. Now, that was a bad experience. You hire an experienced one, and Clint Kubiak goes all the way and win a Super Bowl. Now you want to go back to another first-time coordinator? No, this is an organization problem right now. If you ask me, Brian Fleury never called a play in the NFL, but we think it's okay to hire him after the Ryan Grubb experience. And Clint Kubiak had been an offensive coordinator two times before. Right. So you need that experience when you have a veteran team. When you're in a championship mindset, you need. A person that understands. You can clearly see that Fleury doesn't understand the way he's going east and west when you have a defensive team. So you don't go east and west on offense when you have a defensive team. You're physical. You run through the gut. You run the ball. You control the ball like Chicago did against the Seahawks on Monday night. That's the game plan for anybody. And it seems like he'll have success with two plays, and then he'll want to go ahead and finesse it. This is not a finesse team. This is not a finesse organization. At least it shouldn't be. You know what, though? So all these points, let me throw this at you. We probably didn't realize what a band-aid and how really good Clint Kubiak was last year because clearly he was a stopgap. Or at least his style was a stopgap that was maybe making chicken salad out of chicken you-know-what, and we didn't see that before he was here. We're not seeing that after he was here. So maybe now, he got a lot of credit last year, and he should have. Maybe we need to give him more credit now that he's gone. He can. Because look at what the Raiders are doing. They're actually winning. My goodness, nobody but John Gruden has won anything for 30 years with that team. Right. He can't get much more credit. He got a head coaching job from the job he did with Seattle. So he can't get much more credit. I mean, he's getting enough credit. My point being is we have a head coach who has to step in, has to understand that this whole team is your responsibility, including special teams, which hasn't been up to snuff all season long. This offense hasn't been up to snuff all season long. Now, Clint Kubiak, he didn't hit the ground running. It was slow coming out of the gate. But then he finally found a run game with Charbonnet and Ken Walker, and then Ken Walker took this team home throughout the Super Bowl and the playoffs. So it took him a while to find his stride. But when you're returning almost everybody, 20 out of 22 starters, you cannot start this slow. You lost four out of the last six. It's time to ring the alarm and make some changes. And I'm not talking about all these changes on the offensive line and a full backfield. If you're going to start slow, or use the term slow start, that needs to be confined to the first three to four weeks of the season. Yes. Not the first eight. Yes. And even with a 17-game schedule, we're still at midseason. Here's a stat that I saw last night that this is bothersome. This is bothersome. Special teams, Michael Dixon is a solid punter. I actually think he could be potentially a Hall of Fame punter, which is really saying something because there's only one full-time punter in the Hall of Fame ever, and that would be Ray Guy from the Raiders. But Michael Dixon is tied for seventh in the NFL for the amount of punts. Usually, if you're punting a lot, You're a team that's at the bottom of the standings. You know, you're a team that potentially stinks. You're the Bengals or something like that. He's seventh in punting. That's a dude who is on the field too much kicking the ball to the other team. That's... If that isn't anybody that's still holding out a hope or telling themselves that it's not that bad or they're just a thing here and a thing there. This has been accumulating for eight games now. If that doesn't tell you something, I don't know what will. And then, as you mentioned, Jason Myers, your thoughts on Dixon, and then your thoughts on Jason Myers. He missed the extra point. You got a two-point conversion. It didn't end up meaning anything in the end, but just Captain Hook. This goes back to the preseason, though. We've seen these little things on special teams going, get that little heebie-jeebie chill, and you know something's wrong. Maybe not wrong, but you know something's not right. And let me just say this. I want to go back to the quarterback, QB1 Sam Darnold. Okay. If he continues to play the way he's playing, the Seahawks are in a predicament. They're in quarterback purgatory because you cannot justify, if he continues to turn the ball over like he is, you cannot justify giving him a contract extension for the going rate that a championship quarterback gets. You don't have a quarterback in waiting. Mm-hmm. So, like... You know, the Seahawks are stuck virtually right now. And with the way Darnold is looking right now, I don't like the way we are stuck. Not with that. Not with that kind of play. Now, we have proof of concept. We know he can play without turning the ball over. We know he can play lights out. We know he can play conservative ball without turning the ball over. But for some reason, this guy will not stop giving the ball To the other team, he had another deflection interception yesterday, or Monday night, and people want to say it was a fluke. I said it before, and I'll say it a thousand times. Sam Donald has mastered the deflection interception, and I don't like it. It does happen, but it's... You've lost your good graces, though. Yes. Like, okay, deflection interceptions do happen. But this is one that's also happening after bad throw interceptions. So your stay of execution has already been pushed through. I mean, you don't have too much. You wore out your grace. Pretty much. And I think what bothers me with tipped interceptions, and they do happen, there's tipped balls, especially downfield, especially when you're throwing deep down the sideline. How about vision? How about getting the ball? Don't you know when to throw and when not to throw? And the offensive linemen, aren't you trained to hand fight and keep those defensive linemen? He's like, hand fight with my microphone. Keep their hands down as best you can so that that doesn't happen. Or to minimize it at least. And another observation, Chris, silence. The silence is deafening. Where's Ernest Jones? Where's his defense saying F you? Sam Darnold's our guy. Not one person or one player on the Seahawks team has came out and publicly acknowledged Sam Darnold as being their quarterback and their guy like they did last season. That tells me everything I need to know. This is wearing on this defense. It's contagious right now. The turnovers, the lackluster play, it is hurting the strength of this team. Which is the defense. And the silence is deafening because you don't have anybody from the defense like last year stepping up to back their guy in Sam Darnold. A house divided cannot stand. appropriate thing to say on election day, as of all things. All right. Make sure you go out and vote. So we had the – I turned to the Puget Sound panic meter last week, to the Puget Sound concern meter. Concern meter. Now we're panicking. I think it's back to the panic. Oh, we're panicking. Give me a zero to ten. I'm at a ten. Oh, I mean, I'm always high on the panic meter. What brand of ball that you've witnessed? Other than a few spots here and there, they haven't been consistent all season. man. They should be, i.e. commanders. The defense is giving up long drives, although they're on both ends of the extreme. They're number one in ranked defense, except for when they get in the red zone. So that's when it counts, because they can't keep people out of the end zone. It's all bad right now. Sam Donald won't stop turning the ball over. And the run game, I thought Charbonnet looked good for somebody coming back off an ACL. But they still averaged less than three yards a carry. So was it really good? I don't know. So my panic meter is up at 10 for this team right now. Losing four out of the last six. They're four and four right now. Everybody pinpointed this point in the schedule saying this is a tough point in the schedule that the Seahawks had to do well in. Well, you haven't done well at all. So this is when. I'm not going to say my panic meter went up, but this is kind of when I, again, face palm, just like the little thing you send on your iPhone or on your mobile phone. Thank When Sunday night football hit, and it's Commanders and Eagles, and you look at the record, and the Commanders came into that game 1-4-1, that one win being against the Seahawks. you And you're just kind of going, really, you lost to this team? But it's a telltale sign. very And I think that's when my bad vibes about the Chicago game started. Because I just had a feeling Monday morning when I got out of bed, much. Today just doesn't feel like the day. Now, I don't put money on it. I'm not a premonition type of guy, but it was a feeling on that. My panic meter that I'm putting, I'm going to push mine up to an eight. I think there's a massive concern here right now. And a win against the Cardinals, here's the other thing. The win against the Cardinals is not going to be enough to change that. We need like four or five in a row, including a key one against the 49ers, to where they look and go, okay, not only can this team make the playoffs, but this team can push in the playoffs because defense does travel. offense has to travel, too. They can't be stuck in baggage claim. They got to roll as well. Let me say this. You say, can they make the playoffs? They already made the playoffs because the playoffs start next week with the Arizona Cardinals. Fair enough. The Seahawks cannot lose another game. For a long time, so some things are decided. You know, to lose four of the last six, they're at 500 at 4-4 right now. 4-4 right now. They cannot afford to lose another game, if you ask me, Chris. So you're talking about, can they make the playoffs or they're not? They already made the playoffs because it starts next week. And looking at who they're playing the rest of the way, losses can be, you know, extra painful because you start falling into it. You're going to fall eventually at 4-4 now. If you have a whole lot more losses, one reason you're not going to make the playoffs, you're not good enough. Number two, you're not going to have tiebreakers on some teams. You're not going to get that sixth spot or seventh spot because somebody else is going to get it, might have the same record as you, but they beat you, and they're in because of that. Yes, and I just want to say one last thing about the coaches. With the wholesale changes on the offensive line and the running back room, and I said it at the beginning of the show, you don't do that on Monday night against the Chicago Bears team. That was disrespectful. It was painful to see. And I understand you have to get things going with the guys you have that you want to use in the future. But when you lose a game like that, there is no future, okay? So that was as tough of a loss, as embarrassing of a loss. I'm so disappointed in this team. Definitely the offense needs to get it going. But the defense is supposedly the strength of this team. I hold them to a much higher standard than the offense. Okay, and they did not meet that standard last night, and there's been too many games where they haven't met it all season long. I got to think for them to get back to 4-8. You got to go out and hold the Cardinals to probably 13 or fewer points. Yes, and get to the quarterback. Yes, and get some heat. Get home. Not no pressure rate. Not I'm close. Pressure rate. I don't want to hear it. The metrics that are sounding – the NFL is starting to sound like MLB. Yes. It makes me want to put this laptop up. Pressure rate. I was close enough. No. No, get him on the ground. Get home. And that's something the Seahawks haven't done. And they'll talk about Quinton Wosu. He was out. But he hasn't been lighting it up. He hasn't been Lawrence Taylor off the edge neither. So what are we talking about? You either need to go get an edge or put it in the game plan some way to simulate pressure to get to this quarterback. I mean, you can go down the list of the anonymous defensive players who made an impact last year. He's my guy. I stumped for his contract. I said, John Schneider signed this guy. Why haven't we? Ernest Jones, missing. DeMarcus Lawrence, missing. Nick Amin-Warren, worst game in his career. Devin Widderspoon, where's the juice? Okay, I'm calling them out right now. These are leaders that we've built up to be superhuman, and right now they're just not playing up to par. All right, well, that'll take us home. That is going to wrap. For this week's edition of On the Sidelines, and we don't want to see the Seahawks on the sidelines with another L next week. We'd also like to see a little bit more out of the Kraken. Let's get everything turned around. But that's going to do it for this week. Ethan's got – I think Ethan's got one more week. Yes, one more week. You and me next week. Ethan, get well. We know you're watching. We know you're watching on YouTube. And make sure you get out. And on the Fox local app. Make sure you get out and vote. Follow us on Instagram. At On The Sideline Podcast, go subscribe to the Fox 13 Seattle YouTube if you want to get a full episode. All right. For Dante Jackson, I'm Chris Swanson. That'll do it for us this week. Let's go! I was waiting for that. On The Sidelines is available wherever you get your podcast.