I love what you’ve done with the team.

Truly.

The Seattle Seahawks are now among the great franchises in the NFL. CenturyLink Field is a feared and famous venue. The team is a regular part of conversations about best squads in the league, year-after-year.

That’s damned impressive.

And so much of that success is based on the culture you have created and the roster you have built.

I couldn’t help but notice today the entire starting linebacker and secondary units of that famous defense are players you found in the draft. Meanwhile, the defensive line starters are largely an assemblage of expensive and affordable free agents you successfully pieced together, while stocking up mostly on talented draftees as their reserves.

Again, damn impressive. Hats off to you.

On the offensive side of the ball you have perhaps the greatest 3rd round pick of all time at QB. Your trade for Marshawn Lynch was masterful. The needle in the haystack find of Thomas Rawls was superlative. And the value you have found at wide receiver via undrafted free agents and all-purpose threat Tyler Lockett in the 3rd round as well is mind-blowing.

So much so, you get a pass on the pricey swing-and-miss for Percy Harvin. Oops.

All of this is excellent. If there were awards for best coach and/or GM over the last five years, rather than just annual accolades, you’d be at the top of the heap.

But. That. Offensive. Line.

F. M. L.

Russell was under siege back there against Carolina.

I just saw 13 Hours. I don’t think the six well-armed CIA contractors/elite armed forces vets in that tale, who held off dozens upon dozens of bad guys in the flick, could have stopped everything pouring through the offensive line toward #3.

Maybe that’s harsh. It was one playoff game. On the road. With a 10 am PST start. Against a great defense.

Here’s what bothers me though: Russell Wilson was tied for 3rd in the league for most sacks, 45, during the regular season.

If you had told me at the start of the season that the most elusive QB in the NFL would be sacked nearly three times a game in the 2015 campaign I would have drawn one conclusion: disaster.

Russell’s development into a crushingly awesome, three step, pocket passer down the stretch threatens to make us forget how inadequate the offensive line was for key parts of the year, not the least of which were the repeated failures to move the ball and protect a lead during those five, Fourth Quarter, come-from-ahead losses that put us in that #6 seed, back-to-back 10 am PST starts, on the road in the playoffs scenario.

Let’s not do that again, ok?

So, pretty please: you guys are smart. Your football record speaks for itself. The roster-building Force is strong in you. Put together an offensive line worthy of the rest of this team.

The Legion of 12s would be even further in your debt.

Hugs, kisses, and screaming cheers at the Clink,

A Seahawks fan

P.S. Go Hawks!

Footnote: ribbing and plea for improvement aside about the at times porous offensive line,  the culture the Seahawks have built really is amazing. Read more about it here, here, here,  here, and here. It’s an amazing organizational culture, whose lessons apply way beyond sports.