Yup. A single vision. A clear understanding of ideals and wants. A coach who gets the players to fit the system. A GM who builds for the coach. And owner who pushes the GM. I'd sincerely hope that over a dinner meeting somewhere the three are sitting and agreeing the needs and wants of this team. I'll give them the chance to succeed.
Who are they being? As I watched interview after interview, I was struck by how similar the words and phrases used by each player sounded. Almost as if they had a tightly crafted script: “It’s a total team win.” “We were dialed in on every aspect of our game.” “This was just one more game.” “We play a championship game every week.” “Focus” “We were ourselves and challenged Denver to try to beat us.” “We simply did what we do best, no fancy tricks.” “Every player is accountable to do their job, no excuses.” When asked the key to their success, Pete Carroll replied “We have a common language and we use it and stick to it and don’t ever change it.” Wilson added “That’s the first thing I had to learn was Coach Carroll’s language. He has high standards, creates very high expectations and then let’s us be our. Maybe that's what Philbin is missing as illustrated by cutting Ocho Cinco and we know he and Ireland didn't have the same language.
Hired a week apart. Do you hear that Ross? You don't win by half measures. As I've said before, I think Philbin deserves a 3rd year. But Ross has left himself of this mess of always trying to pair an incoming hire with a perceived undesirable incumbent being forced on them. It started with retaining Ireland in 2011 instead of doing a clean sweep. It's really devastating how far back that one mistake will end up setting back this franchise. Didn't read the whole article, and I'm not sure if they mentioned it, but you have to love how the Seattle front office and Pete Carrol handled the QB position. They made mistakes, but were always willing to quickly move forward and do whatever it took to continue addressing the most important position in football.
Yeah, up until the Hickey hire it happened all of...1 time. What about last year's SB team? Year before that? All that matters is that the right people are paired up. It does not matter what order they were hired in.
This can't be as generalized though, because a lot of the top playmakers that Seattle had this year were drafted, and not necessarily in the first two rounds. They are different then the Ravens last year because the team is stacked and a lot of players are still in rookie contracts. 20 of the 53 in the Ravens SB run are left on their roster, while Seattle only has few FAs this year. They are built long term due to their success in the draft.
What happened to the Ravens and Giants both models of exemplary organizations, please the teams that win are always special, the Patriot way cheats and accused of murder. Please!
With our luck, Ross will try to implement this stability between Hickey and Philbin and let them drag us down for another 5 years...
I've always liked that when Seattle flies in a free agent they always go get a beer and shoot the **** before they go back and talk contract.