ESPN’s Mortensen impressed with Seahawks’ free agent moves

Tarvaris Jackson and Sidney Rice are familiar with offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell’s system from their time in Minnesota. (AP)

By Ian Powell
Special to 710Sports.com

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen is one of the few national analysts that has been impressed by the Seahawks free agent moves over the past week.

Mortensen said that he likes the three biggest additions of Tarvaris Jackson, Robert Gallery and Sidney Rice.

He said both Tarvaris Jackson and Charlie Whitehurst will fit well into the offensive scheme created by new offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and offensive line coach Tom Cable.

“Tom Cable is coming in here with Darrell Bevell and they are running a system. Bevell obviously the passing game system is the west coast based offense, but the running game system is Tom Cable’s and remember when they hired Alex Gibbs last year, which is the zone, cut blocking system, where you need a mobile quarterback coming off that edge, coming backside and with Tarvaris Jackson and Charlie Whitehurst, you have those guys,” Mortensen said on the Brock & Salk show.

Despite the attitude of many other national analysts, Mortensen said he liked the Seahawks pursuit of Sidney Rice.

“I like the Sydney Rice move, I think that you got two guys that can get the ball down the field. I think people are going to be really surprised how talented Tarvaris Jackson is, especially with this running system that Cable will put in,” he said.

Looking at the NFC West, Mortensen said that it is anyone’s to take.

“The division is still wide open, it is a wide open division again and I will say nine wins wins it this time.”