After years of dominating the NFC West things have gone rapidly downhill.

Shaun Alexander is long gone.  Walter Jones has retired.  While there are those wondering if the best days of Matt Hasselbeck are long behind him.

So to rectify the Seahawks slip away from perennial playoff contenders, in comes Pete Carroll.  The former USC coach has not taken long to make a mark with some aggressive moves, but have they done enough to turn around one of the leagues’ weakest rosters?

THE GOOD NEWS

1. Strength up front

He wasn’t as good as he was in 2008 (+21.1 overall rating), but in 2009 Brandon Mebane put together another season (+7.5) that has helped to establish himself as one of the league’s best young defensive tackles.

Surrounded by a lackluster pass rush (and playing injured at times) it’s somewhat understandable that his performance dropped but he still formed an excellent run stuffing partnership with Colin Cole.  The play of the two men (Cole had a +11.6 rating in run defense) was the Seahawks biggest plus point on defense, freeing up linebackers to make plays and doing a good job forcing negative plays (51 combined).

Hopefully a fully healthy Mebane can get back to his penetrative best in 2010, displaying the kind of ability that made him one of 2008′s breakout players.  Throw in an underrated acquisition like Kevin Vickerson (+1.6 overall rating) and there are the makings of a decent rotation.  We’re intrigued to see how the Seahawks defensive line shapes up, but there’s talent there.

2. A (Haw) Thorne for opposing offenses

Losing a guy like Leroy Hill to suspension might hit some teams hard.  Not so for the Seahawks who can just turn to their breakout star from the 2009 campaign, David Hawthorne.

An unknown quantity when he replaced the injured Lofa Tatupu, Hawthorne quickly went about rectifying this with a series of displays that saw him rank 4^th overall in our 4-3 middle linebackers ratings.  Hawthorne did his best work in run defense (+14.3 rating), leading the Seahawks in tackles (92) and defensive stops (49) and we’re confident in his ability to transition to the weak side.

Sometimes injuries aren’t such a bad thing because they give others a chance to show what they’ve got, and Hawthorne took this opportunity and has made Hill somewhat expendable.  The amount of quality linebackers on the Seahawks roster has given them the kind of flexibility that Carroll is looking for.

THE BAD NEWS

1. Injury can’t excuse this player

If he had just played poorly in 2009 you could excuse Marcus Trufants’ poor performance down to his problems with a back injury.

But as one of the leagues supposed top cornerbacks (and the owner of a 6 year $50m deal) we’d be a little concerned about our investment if we were the Seattle Seahawks.  Since signing that mega contract Trufant was below average in 2008 with a -1.7 coverage rating that saw him rank 66^th out of all corners and then had the abysmal 2009 that had him ranked 105^th overall of all corners.

It doesn’t exactly represent good value for money.

The challenge for Trufant isn’t that he needs to return to the way he was playing before the back injury.   He needs to improve on that – substantially.  In 2008 Trufant struggled in coverage where he gave up 856 yards (3^rd most in the league) and 8 touchdowns (2^nd most in the league), and while injury earned him a pass for 2009 it’s about time he started to earn some of that $50m put n the table in front of him.

2. A rush to find some pressure

In 2009 the Seahawks didn’t do a great job of finding pressure.

This hasn’t been helped by the retirement of Patrick Kerney (whose 34 total pressures led Seattle) or the trading away of Darryl Tapp (who finished behind Kerney with 30 total pressures).  Now the Seahawks are going to be looking towards Chris Clemons (who only played 213 total snaps in 2009) as their main pass rushing force, but is a man with 43 total pressures someone they can really rely on?

Last year it was only the blitzing of Aaron Curry that consistently generated pressure (Curry ended up with 18 total pressures on 99 attempts for a +6.1 rating) so it’s going to need someone in the base packages to step up.  We just don’t see a guy on the roster who is going to be doing that.

OUTLOOK

It would be easy to look at all the changes the Seahawks have made and think them competitive in the NFC West.  But when you really break it down there’s an element of the unknown about a number of players the Seahawks are counting on and while that could work out marvelously with a new scheme in place, we’re more of the seeing is believing types.

Target: 6-10