Seahawks confident team will be contender for many years to come

RENTON — Prior to the 2015 NFL season, there were some who thought the Seattle Seahawks’ window for contending for the Super Bowl was on the verge of slamming shut.

Seattle still had its chance in 2015, but after that trouble was on the horizon. The Seahawks won the 2014 Super Bowl and reached the 2015 Super Bowl with a roster filled with players who were over-performing their contracts. Come 2016 those players would either get paid or leave for greener financial pastures, and Seattle would succumb to the inevitable NFL cycle of decline dictated by the salary cap.

But the Seahawks believe that despite bowing out of the playoffs in the divisional round, they showed why they’ll be contenders again next season.

“I feel like we have a great team,” linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “We have a great team coming back, I feel like we go into the offseason very healthy. We’re going to get some guys back and I feel like we’re going to be a scary team next year.”

Perhaps the biggest reason for optimism is the continuing development of quarterback Russell Wilson. Wilson played well during his first three seasons as Seattle’s quarterback, but he was rarely considered the reason why the Seahawks won games. His job was to limit mistakes while running back Marshawn Lynch and the league’s best defense did the heavy lifting.

That changed this season. When Lynch went down injured, the Seahawks were forced to rely more on Wilson’s right arm. A subtle tweak to the offensive systems at midseason, which compelled Wilson to get rid of the ball more quickly, elevated Wilson’s play to MVP levels as he finished the season by throwing 24 touchdown passes against only one interception in Seattle’s final seven regular season games.

The Seahawks thought they had a franchise-caliber quarterback before. They know they have one now. And Seattle coach Pete Carroll only expects Wilson, who’s heading into his fifth season, to continue to get better.

“I think it’s really the right time to turn his focus and broaden his awareness of what is going on in the game overall,” Carroll said. “He and I will spend a lot of time this offseason introducing him to the perspective of what it’s like to look at the defense from the defensive side of the ball. I want him to learn and understand what’s going on schematically, rotation-wise, fits-wise, even more than he knows now.”

Wilson will have plenty of pieces to work with. Receiver Doug Baldwin had a breakout season, being named a Pro Bowl alternate. Rookie receiver Tyler Lockett was a pleasant surprise who will be worked into the offense even more next season. The Seahawks will also get back tight end Jimmy Graham, who was finding a comfort level in Seattle’s offense when he suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 12.

Seattle also gets the core of its league-leading defense back. The Seahawks’ defense allowed the fewest points in the NFL for the fourth straight year and had five players named to the Pro Bowl. All five — Wagner, cornerback Richard Sherman, defensive end Michael Bennett, and safeties Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor — are under contract for next season. So is defensive end Cliff Avril, a Pro Bowl alternate.

“I really like our team,” Carroll said about what kind of personnel moves need to be made in the offseason. “Yeah, there’s some stuff, there’s always stuff. But I really like our team. I like the balance of it. I like the youth of it, the attitude, the mentality, the toughness.

“There’s difficult decisions that we’ll have to make, and we’ll make them, and we’ll move forward in hopes of making our roster more competitive,” Carroll added. “There’s a lot of guys on this roster right now, the young guys that you don’t know a lot about, that I think have a chance to really push other guys that are on our team right now.”

Some of those difficult decisions will have to be made on the offensive line. Seattle, in signing many of its core players to big contracts, decided to go cheaper on the offensive line. That turned into a disaster during the first half of the season as Wilson was under constant pressure. The protection issues eased midseason after Patrick Lewis took over at center for converted defensive lineman Drew Nowak. But they reared their ugly head again in a late-season loss to St. Louis and the season-ending defeat to Carolina.

Compounding the situation is Seattle’s two most experienced offensive linemen, tackle Russell Okung and guard J.R. Sweezy, are both unrestricted free agents. The Seahawks have a lot of money committed to their stars for 2016, so they’ll have to figure out how to finesse the offensive line again.

The Seahawks, after falling short in their bid to become the third team to reach three straight Super Bowls, are fully expecting some people to say the window has closed on Seattle.

“People have said a lot of things and they’ve been wrong before,” Sherman said.

“Were so young I think people get confused sometimes, like our quarterback is 38,” Sherman continued. “I think he’s closer to 26 or 27 than 38. Bobby Wagner is 25. We’ve got a young core. I think people have been astounded by what we’ve been able to do in our young careers, but we’re far from done. Guys are just entering their primes and we’re going to be special for a long time.”

Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.

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