Salk: What’s enlightening about Seahawks going into this season

As the Seattle Seahawks get ready to start their season, I just went back and watched every game from last season, or at the very least the highlight package of all of them. All 20 games that they played.

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I’ll tell you what – what a magical, incredible run they had. We all know that it finished with a Super Bowl victory, but watching it build while knowing how that story ended was incredibly enlightening to me.

I got an opportunity to see this defense, the challenges they had early and the way they dealt with some of the injuries that they had. There were people who made big plays on this defense that didn’t even finish the year with the team, and yet they had interceptions, they had sacks, they had big moments.

Why? Because Mike Macdonald’s system is really good. It’s not just the talent that he’s got out on the field, although obviously that magnifies it.

The offense, as maligned as it can be, finished third in points last year in the NFL. AJ Barner was better than I remember. JSN was obviously unbelievable. The offensive line went from not that great to very, very, very good by the end of the year.

If you take a chart of all of the rushing yards they had per game over the course of the season and then put a trend line through it, that number starts under 100 and ends over 150. That’s the kind of success that they had in terms of growth over the course of the season.

Hey, guess what? Every one of those offensive linemen is back. The offensive coordinator is an offensive line/running game kind of guy. And the offensive line coach is back as well. Oh yeah, and you drafted a running back with the 32nd pick.

I continue to be bullish on these Seahawks. I don’t know whether it means they can repeat as Super Bowl champions, but I do think the offense is going to be better than people think, and I think the offensive line is going to be a big part of it.

This article is a transcript of the video at the top of the post. It is edited for clarity. Catch Mike Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

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