Let’s sit here and be completely honest with ourselves about the Seattle Seahawks and the direction they are headed in right now. Since 2012, they’ve been one of the best teams in the NFC and you can make a case that they have been one of the best in the entire league. They get to the second round of the playoffs with a then-rookie quarterback in Russell Wilson and the following season in 2013, they were the best team in the league, got the one seed in the NFC playoffs and held a Denver Broncos offense led by Peyton Manning to 8 points and won their first Super Bowl title in franchise history. After losing the Super Bowl to New England the following year, things seemed to go downhill from there. Marshawn Lynch retired and the Seahawks offense wasn’t the same after that, the offensive line has struggled and this past season, they missed the playoffs for the first time since 2011. We’ve heard the rumors about this team potentially being dismantled. Today, a report came out that Richard Sherman expects not to be back next year for Seattle and a little while after that, the Seahawks agreed to trade defensive end Michael Bennett to the Philadelphia Eagles.
I don’t think Michael gets the credit that he deserves. He’s become one of the complete defensive players in the National Football League. He’s a freakish athlete that’s extremely disruptive and he’s all over the place and gets to where he wants from different angles and positions. He’s such a dynamic player that plays with great leverage and has the speed and footwork to slip free into the backfield and make a tackle or sack the quarterback. Another thing he doesn’t receive credit for either is how smart he is and how he’s able to study plays and the instinct to know what play the offense will run and that’s why he’s in the opposing team’s backfield quite often. I love the engine that he plays with and how he plays until the play is officially whistled dead and that’s how it’s supposed to be, you play until the whistle is blown. When breaking down the Seahawks, the legion of boom was always discussed first and how they impacted everything from the back end and understandably so, but Bennett was hands down the guy that stirred the drink up for the Seattle Seahawks defense up front and now, he takes his championship pedigree and joins the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles.
I’m pumped up about this acquisition for the Philadelphia Eagles. Their defense was one of the three best units in the league in 2017 and now by adding a player of Bennett’s caliber, the Eagles defensive line should remain as one of the best in the league with Fletcher Cox, Chris Long, Brandon Graham and Tim Jernigan. The Eagles will probably now lose Vinnie Curry after making this deal. This could be the best defensive line in all of the National Football League and the Eagles showed us today that they intend to stay on top of the NFC for many years to come.
