Am I becoming a Fisch fan?

I was not particularly fond of Jedd Fisch.

This is not based on anything he has done as the Huskies coach, however.

And I don’t believe that this fact says all that much about how he will perform in that position going forward.

In fact, I’ve had someone who played for him while while he was the Seahawks quarterbacks coach and several who worked around him tell me that not only do they like Fisch, but they believe he will be a great coach for the college I attended.

I remain not only open to this possibility, but hopeful.

I also think it’s best — this being a safe space and all — to be fully transparent about my feelings, and I’ll explain why when we Go Deep in today’s newsletter. But first …

• Completion percentages have never been higher in the NFL. Interceptions have never been lower, and while that sounds like the Golden Age of passing offense, the yards are kinda meh. What in name of Cover 2 defenses is going on? The Ringer’s Diante Lee has a very thoughtful exploration of some trends that apply directly to Geno Smith here in Seattle.

• Gonzaga is joining the Pac-12, which points to the conference having a basketball-bent. I have long been a proponent of admitting Gonzaga to the conference, however, this was because I wanted to force the school to field a football team. The Pac-12 does not share my insistence on football, which is probably smart from a liability standpoint, but not so much on the entertainment side of things. I really wanted to see the Gonzaga intramural flag-football champs face off against FBS schools!

NFL players have long been mindful of not giving opponents bulletin-board material. Now there’s one announcer you should be worried about, too: Tom Brady.

In Week 4, FOX finally assigned Brady to a game that didn’t involve the Cowboys. He called the Eagles-Bucs games this weekend, and at some point in September, Baker Mayfield went on this podcast called “Casa de Klub,” which is hosted by former MLB pitcher Corey Kluber, who won a Cy Young, and some guy named Tyler Casagrande.

During that appearance, Mayfield said something that Tom Brady bristled at, and coming back from commercial, Brady’s new employer set him up to show everyone how tough and feisty their big-budget announcer is:

As a Gen Xer, I fully respect Brady’s old-man act: “It’s not supposed to be fun!”

As someone who finds Brady’s public persona increasingly tedious, I am simply going to point out that this reeks of the guy who graduated high school three years ago coming back to campus for a Friday football game and sneering about the current team. We get it dude, you’re the best ever, but you’re not the show anymore. You’re calling the show. It’s no longer about you!

The Mariners wound up missing the playoffs by a single game.

I didn’t realize this until Tuesday, however. I stopped paying attention to the standings on Thursday when Seattle was officially eliminated from the postseason.

That means that in three of the past five seasons, Seattle has missed the playoffs by two games or fewer. That’s not unlucky, that’s a habit, and the question this offseason is two-fold:

1. Will ownership give the front office more money to augment the existing major-league roster? And given the fact John Stanton is insistent in saying the payroll increased last year, I should specify that it needs to be more than a marginal uptick. While the payroll went from $140 million in 2023 to $145 million in 2024, that feels more like a cost-of-living adjustment than a significant increase.

2. Will the front office take a different approach to improving the lineup?

I don’t particularly care about what Jerry Dipoto said in his impromptu end-of-season press availability nor do I put all that much stock in Stanton telling people the payroll would increase as The Seattle Times has reported. I’ve heard enough over the years to know that they make all the sounds that indicate they’re going to take of things this time.

I’m going to be judging results only, and I would encourage you to do the same.

When I was a reporter, I made a conscious effort not to let my personal feelings about an individual seep into my coverage.

I did not believe that a player’s willingness to be interviewed or the personal interactions he had with the reporters who covered him should affect the way I described or characterized his or her performance.

I still think that should be the case, honestly. I’m just not a reporter anymore. I haven’t been since 2013 when I left The Seattle Times and became a talk-radio host.

Also it has been more than 20 years since I attempted to feign anything approaching journalistic objectivity when it comes to the Washington Huskies so I feel OK in letting you in on something I would previously be loathe to admit.

I did not particularly care for Jedd Fisch when he was the quarterbacks coach for the Seattle Seahawks back in 2010.

Jeremy Bates, the offensive coordinator he worked under, was downright surly toward reporters. He did things — such as ordering reporters off the practice field — that I thought were not just about protecting information, but to demonstrate the disdain he held for us. He wanted to show that we were not just insignificant, but an impediment to what he was trying to accomplish.

It’s possible that this shaded my perceptions of Fisch. It’s also possible that Fisch took his cues from Bates, but over the course of that one year Fisch spent in Seattle I found him to be smug and condescending. The kind of guy who — when seeing me at the stadium on game day — would say something demeaning about something I’d written for that morning’s paper.

I did my absolute best to prevent those feelings leak out into my coverage. I suppose I silently judged him, though, and rolled my eyes as the years went on and I saw him curating a specific backstory for himself by telling reporters about how he kept Jon Gruden’s resume taped to the mirror so he could look at it when he shaved. He was clearly a striver. Someone who didn’t stay in any one place too long, and had come to see how reporters could be used to build his personal narrative.

I was not rooting for him to be chosen as Washington’s next coach.

However, I recognize he was incredibly qualified — given the success he’d had at Arizona — to be chosen.

Several people — including one long-time friend — have raved about the work he did to rebuild connections down there with Arizona high schools. One guy who played for him with the Seahawks believes he is the perfect coach for this NIL-era of athletes. Several people who were with the Seahawks front office when Fisch was here have told me that I’m probably overly critical Fisch.

I hope they’re right, and I fully concede that they might have much more information about Fisch and his skill set than I do. He was on the Seahawks staff for not even one full calendar year while I was covering the team, and he was the quarterbacks coach on an offensive staff that was not all that interested in talking to reporters.

I’m bringing all this up for two reasons:

1. I think it’s worth being honest. I know it may not seem like it these days given how much everyone seems to be posturing and performing in any sort of public forum, but I think explaining how you see a certain situation allows other people to explain how they see that same situation. At the very least, you get more information. In some cases, you may see how you had an incomplete or perhaps even erroneous view.

2. You are not obligated to hold on to your initial impression or judgments. You can change and update your opinions based on new information. In fact, it’s incredibly healthy to do so, and while I have rolled my eyes about things Fisch has said or done as Huskies coach, I am generally encouraged by how the team has played as we approach the halfway point of his first season.

I know that not all Husky fans share this opinion. They’ll point to the penalties or the speed-option play he called in the Apple Cup or the difficulty scoring in the red zone as red flags.

They’re right. There have been recurring issues. I’m also not sold on the way Fisch is rotating his quarterbacks.

However, I see a team that is two plays away from being 5-0 despite having an unbelievable amount of turnover along its offensive line. I think the defense is more aggressive and exciting than any year since Chris Petersen first arrived in 2014.

Yes, the offense is struggling to score touchdowns especially when it gets inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. Quarterback-center exchange remains a huge issue.

In my opinion, these are the result of the situation that Fisch inherited, having lost six of the team’s top seven offensive linemen from last season’s team.

I am way more hopeful that Washington might actually beat Michigan on Saturday than I was when the season started. Some of that is because the Wolverines don’t seem to have anything approaching a competent passing game. Some of that is because the Huskies held their own up front in each of the first two games in conference play.

There have been some things that have caused me to roll my eyes. Marketing Washington as the 33rd team in the NFL was cringeworthy in my opinion. Also, when Fisch talks about what “we’ve done” in previous seasons, he’s usually referencing statistics from Arizona.

Those are stylistic critiques, though. They’re not about the stuff that really matters, and in general, I’m pretty excited about that.

• “All The Sinners Bleed”

  By S.A. Crosby

  Fiction, Crime thriller

I love a good crime thriller, and Crosby has written a couple of my favorites. His latest — which was published in 2023 and is now available in paperback — is set in a small town in Virginia where Titus Crown returns home after leaving his job with the FBI and is elected the town’s first Black sheriff. One year into his tenure, a popular school teacher is murdered and in the investigation, Crown, finds evidence of a serial killer whose crimes go back years.

I’m not sure if I like this one MORE than “Blacktop Wasteland,” but it’s right up there.