It's better to cut your losses

Just over halfway through the season, the Seahawks have ditched the two linebackers they committed $12 million to this offseason.

Good.

The run defense has been thoroughly terrible, and I’m glad that Seattle isn’t sitting on its hands and hoping it improves.

The coaches are making assessments, the front office is acting on them, and once the Seahawks decide a guy isn’t capable of doing an adequate job they’re willing to make a move and to try someone else even if it runs a highlighter over a bad signing.

Two weeks ago, they gave up a fourth-round pick to swap out Jerome Baker for Ernest Jones.

This week, they cut Tyrel Dodson.

Now obviously, it would be preferable if these conclusions were reached prior to the team committing a combined $12 million to Baker and Dodson, but that’s a sunk cost at this point, and I’m going to explain why I think this willingness to admit a mistake is valuable in the main section of today’s post. But first, we’re going to hear from you …

📗 Quick read 📗 

Last week, I took the room’s temperature on how they felt about the head coach, and it turns out that just under two-thirds of you consider the results through nine games to be on par with your expectations. Here’s a link to the comments and full tabulation.

✂️ Cut to the chase ✂️ 

People tend to assume that winning is the highest priority for NFL head coaches and general managers.

This is wrong.

Their highest priority is to remain employed in their current position, and while winning is the best way to accomplish that task, there are other considerations, too. Like not looking bad.

People in the NFL hate looking bad whether it’s players, coaches and GMs. It is a significant reason why post-game interviews tend to be fairly boring, everyone supremely hesitant to point out who made the mistake on a given play. This would make them look bad, and in turn, they might feel compelled to make you look bad so better to stay mum.

I believe that a fear of looking bad is a big reason NFL coaches don’t tend to be as aggressive as they should be in going for it on fourth down or attempting a two-point conversion when they’re down eight, but that’s another subject.

We’re focusing on personnel here. More specifically, Seattle’s willingness under John Schneider to cut bait on two offseason additions, first in trading Jerome Baker to Tennessee and now in releasing Tyrel Dodson.

Because this looks BAD. There is no way around that.

The Seahawks signed Jerome Baker and Tyrel Dodson to a pair of one-year deals. Baker was going to get around $7 million, Dodson in the neighborhood of $5 million, and nine games into this yearthose guys were deemed to be so insufficient that Seattle would prefer to finish the season without them.

Looking at the team’s run defense, it’s hard to say that assessment is wrong.

At this point, I’m not sure it matters whether rookie Tyrice Knight will be an improvement over Dodson. The fact is that the run defense has been bad, and Dodson wasn’t going to be coming back next year. Better to see what the young guy can do than to simply play out the string.

There are teams that wouldn’t make this move because it would be such a clear admission of a mistake. They would rather keep a player they know isn’t up to the job because they believed he could do it back when they signed him. To cut him loose now would make it crystal clear that they had erred in that assessment.

They would look bad. Not just to fans and to other teams, but to the owner, and while losing is what will ultimately get you fired, looking bad while you’re losing can get you fired more quickly than you otherwise might.

This can lead to situations in which teams avoid or delay decisions in order to save face.

Here’s what I mean by that: Seattle’s decision to waive Dodson has caused a number of people to question the Seahawks front office. Here’s a passage from Mike Vorel’s Wednesday column in The Seattle Times:

Vorel is right. None of those signings have yielded the dividends that were hoped for.

If Seattle had simply kept Dodson, it would have avoided the raft of stories training a spotlight on the offseason acquisitions.

Would the team have been better for it, though?

Dodson, like Baker, was signed to a one-year deal. Whiffing on short-term deals isn’t what kills you in the NFL, though, because it’s relatively easy to turn the page.

You have to be willing to do that, though, which may require you to swallow your pride. That’s something that Seattle’s front office is willing to do, and I think the team is better off for it.

The dry snitch

This week, the Chicago Bears parted ways with offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. This was not entirely surprising.

The Bears are an absolute mess. They’ve lost three consecutive games, haven’t scored a touchdown in eight quarters and receiver in D.J. Moore limped off the field mid-play a couple of weeks back.

Waldron’s dismissal has triggered a number of people to observe how generally terrible his offense is. Since he was the offensive coordinator for Seattle prior to coming to Chicago, there are some Seahawks with feelings on the subject.

Emmanuel Acho, who works at FOX Sports, read a text message he said he received from one of them:

“I could have told you when the OC was hired the offense was going to be some 💩. Never understood that hire.”

Acho identified this player as a former Pro Bowler, and read a follow-up text as well:

“Man, they hated him in Seattle, and we collectively felt like we didn’t have a good offensive coaching staff.”

I’m not going to dispute the validity of this assessment. I would, however, like to point out two things.

1. I’m hesitant to sign off on Seattle having an utterly inadequate offense the previous two years primarily because I don’t believe the Seahawks are markedly better this year under a different scheme.

2. I don’t know who Acho talked to, but if I had gone to Texas with Acho before making a Pro Bowl with the Seahawks, I’d be pretty furious that Acho is reading text messages and leaving bread crumbs that — at the very least — will leave people convinced they came from me.

We’ll wrap up today’s newsletter with a question: Eight games left, the Seahawks are 4-5 heading to San Francisco, and 1.5 games games back of Arizona, whom Seattle faces next weekend.