RENTON — The Seattle Seahawks abruptly cut ties with Percy Harvin on Friday, and in that stunning move, admitted to making one of the biggest mistakes of the Pete Carroll/John Schneider era.
Given how much the Seahawks gave up in both draft picks and money to get Harvin in the spring of 2013, and how little they got in return when they sent him to the New York Jets on Friday, his acquisition was a bust in every sense of the word — regardless of what he did in Super Bowl XLVIII.
Beginning with today’s game in St. Louis, the Seahawks now have to show that trading their most physically gifted offensive player was the right move for a team that still strives to be the best in the NFL. Because as bold as it was 19 months ago for an already good team to send first-, third- and seventh-round picks to Minnesota for Harvin, then sign him to a massive contract extension, it is potentially just as risky send their most dynamic playmaker packing midseason.
No matter how much of a headache Harvin was — and there were significant issues, from physical altercations with teammates to taking himself out of last week’s game down the stretch — the Seahawks are less talented today than they were three days ago.
Schneider is aware of the risk he just took, calling the trade, “an extremely difficult decision,” in a statement released by the team. “We are constantly evaluating our team and believe at this time, that this is in our best interest to move the team forward. We thank Percy for his effort that contributed to a Super Bowl XLVIII victory and wish him well.”
The Seahawks wish Harvin well, but they don’t wish for him to be a part of their future. They not only were willing to part ways with Harvin, but do so for very little return, getting only a conditional 2015 pick that ranges from a fourth to sixth-rounder, according to the NFL Network. Now we start finding out what a Harvin-less future will look like for a team that already had questions to answer this week even before Friday’s bombshell.
Before the Harvin trade ended this week with a bang, the Seahawks already were heading into something of a show-me game. Seattle players and coaches never will put more importance on one game than another, which has been a key element to their success. At the very least, however, they need a strong performance to settle their fans’ nerves and to show the outside world that they are still a force to be reckoned with in the NFL.
After a loss in which they were pretty thoroughly outplayed by the Dallas Cowboys, questions began to emerge about the Seahawks, who only a month earlier were the consensus Best Team in Football. Has this team lost its way on offense, with Marshawn Lynch carrying the ball only 10 times against the Cowboys and eight times in a loss at San Diego? Was offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell too infatuated with Harvin and calling the game accordingly? (Well if that was the case, I suppose it’s no longer an issue).
And had injuries and offseason departures taken their toll on the defense that a season ago was in an all-time-best debate, but this year has looked far more mortal? Even worse, some wondered if that defense had lost its intimidation factor; its swagger.
It’s hardly encouraging when All-Pro safety Earl Thomas admits that the team might have taken home-field advantage for granted, contributing to last week’s loss, and says, “To be totally honest, the two games that we lost, to me, as far as the defensive side of the ball, it’s just character issues when it gets tough like that. We’re a new team; we’re not like last year. We have to understand who we are when situations get tough and not stray from the men we say we are.”
And it’s fair to wonder how an offense will respond not just to the trade of Harvin, but to a poor performance that set off a profanity-laced rant from receiver Doug Baldwin following Sundays loss.
“We’re not on it right now and we just need to be better,” Carroll said. “And that’s really on both sides on the ball; we’re not as good as we expect to be.”
It would be a big overreaction to say the Seahawks are broken or have been exposed or whatever doom-and-gloom scenario one can come up with. As Harvin said two days before he was traded, “We’re 3-2, we don’t have all losses right now, we’re still in a great spot. We’ve just got little things to fix here and there, but we’re going to be fine. There’s nothing where we come into the meeting room and it’s like, ‘wow, we can’t get it fixed.’”
Little did Harvin know that part of fixing things was shipping him to New York. But that was the decision the team made, and for the Seahawks, admitting a mistake means proving they’re better off without one of football’s most explosive receivers and kick returners.
And in light of that decision, as well as everything else that went on in the past week, today’s game feels like something of a potential turning point for the Seahawks. It could be the game when the Seahawks find themselves, beginning a successful stretch that turns those two early-season losses into a minor hiccup. Or it could be the day that sees the Seahawks lose consecutive games for the first time since the middle of the 2012 season, fall to 3-3 and open themselves to all sorts of questions about their vulnerability.
The Seahawks have certainly lost before — they lost three times on their way to a Super Bowl. However, something feels different this week, from the way Dallas outplayed them to the way players reacted, to Friday’s stunning decision to dump one of their best players at a bargain price.
There have been issues on both sides of the ball for the Seahawks this year, but according to quarterback Russell Wilson, “We’re fine though, we just had one bad game. When you really think about it, everybody was talking about us as the best team in football before that last game. So we just had a bad game. It’s going to happen every once and a while; hopefully never again.”
Never again starts today in St. Louis, where the Seahawks will try to show that they are not only still one of the best teams in the league, but also that they are better off without one of the NFL’s most explosive players.
Herald Columnist John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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