The Seattle Saga, More on Sunday
By Joe Barnes
Boy is it getting crazy in Seattle. There are two things I’m going to talk about with the Seahawks situation. The GM situation and Pete Carroll. Let’s start with good ole So Cal Pete. At first it seemed incredibly odd to me that Pete Carroll has not even commented on NFL head coaching offers during his time at USC, and now he’s taking a job in of all places…Seattle. Thinking about it however, things started to add up. USC had a sub-par season, Carroll is involved in a recruiting firestorm with allegations hovering about Reggie Bush’s house and Joe McKnight’s SUV use. Today, McKnight declared for the NFL Draft. Perfect time to make a quick getaway? And even more, Scout.com ranks their 2010 recruiting class as #15 in the country, the first time the Trojans have been out of the top 10 since 2002. The LA Times reports the “deal is done”. A USC source says the deal is “going down”. And even better, Carroll is trying to bring his USC offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates with him. When you look at the dollars, why wouldn’t he take it? 5 years and $35 million is a very hefty sum. If this does in fact happen, which it looks like it will, it will be interesting to see how this affects both the NFL and NCAA coaching carousel.
Eric DeCosta, the Ravens director of player personnel, meaning he’s second in command to GM Ozzie Newsome, has pulled his name out of the Seahawks open GM position. He was one of four finalists for the job, and this a relief for Ravens fans. DeCosta is one of the geniuses behind the Ravens’ drafts, and it’s great that he’ll be sticking around. He turned down the Browns’ GM position last season, and it appears that he did it for good reason. As Ken Murray writes, this could have been due to DeCosta being notified that he’s next in line for the Ravens GM job, and DeCosta probably recognizes the opportunity to work under Newsome, one of the NFL’s best.
Lastly, each and every day, Sunday’s game is getting more buzz. Today was Purple Friday, hopefully you were rocking your Ravens gear. Kevin Eisenberg has 5 questions with Tom Brady and Bill Belly-Fat on the official site, definitely a good thing to check out. Jeff Wolfson gives us his prediction on his blog and interestingly, Randy Moss was not at practice today. Read the article and you’ll find out that it’s definitely injury-related if all signs are correct. He’s had bags of ice on his knees and with Wes Welker out for a long time, the Pats might not be breathing easy with their receiving corps. More on that with a preview tomorrow. That might be it for tonight unless something big happens, some news and a preview will be coming sometime tomorrow.