Category Archives: Tarvaris Jackson

Want to attend a Seahawks practice? You need to register

Seattle Seahawks fans will get a chance to judge quarterbacks Tarvaris Jackson, Matt Flynn and Russell Wilson during open practices from July 28-Aug. 15 .

The practices at their training facility in Renton are open to the public, but you must register at this site to be eligible. Also, it’ll cost you a $6 transportation fee.

In the meantime, who do you want to win that QB battle?

Who do you think will win it?

I think Flynn will be the starter at the beginning of the season, but got a feeling that Wilson will be the starter by the end of the season. I’m not as down on Jackson as a lot of people. When he was good, he was really good at times, but he’s got a history on inconsistency and  I think the Hawks will release him during training camp. Josh Portis will be the third QB for a second straight year.

 

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Wednesday ramblings

Some questions, some thoughts, some predictions and a Mike Leach quote:

Would the Mariners win the Nippon Professional Baseball League? Probably, but I don’t think they would run away with it. The gap between MLB and Japan baseball is narrowing. If you don’t think so, then you weren’t paying attention to the last two World Baseball Classics, both won by Japan.

I think Seattle second baseman Dustin Ackley hits 20 or more home runs, challenges for the American League batting title this season and will be a a multiple all-star before he retires.

If you believe what you read, former Central Kitsap star Drew Vettleson — an outfielder and one of the Tampa Bay Rays’ top minor-league prospects — will open the season at Class A Bowling Green, Ky. Their nickname? The Hot Rods.

Speaking of the bluegrass state, can you imagine the insanity that’s going on over the upcoming Louisville-Kentucky Final Four semifinal game? If only Murray State, the David in that state, could have joined the Goliaths in New Orleans. How crazy would that have been?

The Washngton Huskies won’t finish in the top half of the Pac-12 next season if Terrence Ross and Tony Wroten both leave for the NBA.

Would Matt Flynn has put up those gaudy numbers in the two games he played if he would have been coming off the bench to quarterback the Seattle Seahawks last season? I think not. Green Bay’s offense was pretty explosive  and Flynn had a few more weapons at his disposal than what Tarvaris Jackson had to work with in Seattle.

If you had the first pick, wouldn’t you pick Kevin Love over Dwight Howard if you were choosing teams? Wouldn’t you pick Kevin Love over any big man in the game? Seems like Love goes for 35 points and 20 rebounds every other night. Big fella from Portland can play.

How many of you who watched the Mariners’ 3 a.m. opener on Wednesday plan to be awake for Game 2 at 2 a.m. on Thursday? Sushi and and Sake Bombers to those of you who do. You really gotta love those guys to tune in at that hour.

Did you know that this year’s  Final Four Louisville team lost by 31 points to Providence, the school Rick Pitino coached to his first Final Four in 1987?

How many of Golfweek’s top-10 in-state golf courses can you name? In order, they are:
1) Chambers Bay, University Place
2) Wine Valley, Walla Walla
3) Palouse Ridge, Pullman
4) Salish Cliffs, Shelton
5) Loomis Trail, Blaine
6) Olympic Course at Gold Mountain, Bremerton
7) Semiahmoo, Blaine
8) Trophy Lake Golf & Casting, Port Orchard
9) Suncadia (Prospector), Roslyn
10) Desert Canyon, Orondo

Tiger Woods is the talk of golf heading into the next week’s Masters, but if I was a betting man, my money would be on Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson and Hunter Mahan. Have a hunch it could be Rickie Fowler’s time, too. Gig Harbor’s Kyle Stanley and Puyallup’s Ryan Moore also have the games to tame Augusta.

New Washington State football coach Mike Leach, has started spring practices. So far there hasn’t been a lot of news coming out of Pullman. No Pirate sighting that I know of. The candid, likeable Leach seems to be all business on the field. That said, here’s a Leach quote from an interview on KJR that I liked:

“One night we were just trying to get familiar with the town, so my wife and I had gone to a movie. So we drive downtown and I’m just curious where my team and charges are hanging out. There’s nothing downtown. Downtown’s dead. So we drive up College Hill. As we’re going up College Hill, shoot there’s mini-skirts and hot pants everywhere. So I ask her ‘what’s the temperature?’ I go, ‘it’s gotta be pretty warm out there, huh?’ Thirty-seven degrees! Thirty-seven degrees! I don’t what’s in the water and exactly how tough these people are. Certainly they didn’t need jackets to be necessary at 37 degrees.”

 

 

 

 

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The more we know, the less we know

The unpredictability is the best part about sports.

Everybody says Tim Tebow can’t play in the NFL,  and the quarterback/evangelist/right winger proves everybody wrong, nearly leading Denver to a comeback, upset victory over the Chargers on Sunday. You don’t have to agree with his politics or like his passing technique to appreciate what he brings to the football field — the guy’s a winner. It’ll be interesting to see if his role will increase after what he did on Sunday.

Everybody buried the Seahawks weeks ago. But Tarvaris Jackson shows he can play when he gets a little protection, and when he goes down, maligned Charlie Whitehurst comes off the bench to lead the Hawks over the New York Giants. The 10.5-point underdogs thrive in a no-huddle offense, the defense makes a lot of big plays and they shock the world. If not the world, the bookies in Vegas and all of those football know-it-all analysts.

The Yankees, the Phillies, the Red Sox are done, but the Brewers, Tigers, Cardinals and Rangers play on. And the Diamondbacks came thisclose to advancing to the baseball’s Final Four. You can’t figure this stuff out, which is the way it should be.

And how about those San Francisco 49ers? The mild, mild NFC West might have a legitimate contender after all. Jim Harbaugh can coach and QB Alex Smith, the Bremerton-born player and former No. 1 pick who has been labeled a bust, isn’t a such a schmuck after all.

How many of you gave Olympic High a chance to beat North Kitsap in football on Friday night?

How many of you thought Washington’s Keith Price was going to be this good? Steve Sarkisian will never come out and say that Price is flat-out a better college QB than Jake Locker, but he is.

Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, remember that you don’t.

There’s always going to be a Buster Douglas come along to knock out a Mike Tyson.

There’s always going to be some shocking surprises along the way; there always are and it’s a big reason why the games we like to watch and play are so much fun.

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Whitehurst/Jackson over Hasselbeck makes sense to me

Wouldn’t you like to have really known what was going on when Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, GM John Schneider, offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell  and the rest of the franchises’s brain trust sat down to discuss their quarterback situation?

Take off your 12th Man jersey for a second. If you look at it objectively, the Seahawks did the right thing, right?

Matt Hasselbeck: Great guy, team leader, but he is gonna be 36 in September, is injury prone and his best years are behind him. It won’t be long before he joins older younger brother, Tim, as an analyst on ESPN. Wish him well, but it’s time to move on. You know that’s what the Seahawks’ braintrust was thinking. The Hawks will miss kicker Olindo Mare, who is headed to Carolina, more than Hasselbeck.

Tarvaris Jackson: Great athlete, big arm, mobile, knows the system that’s going to be put in place. Has a career completion percentage of 58.7 percent. Hasselbeck was 59.9 last year. Bevell was the offensive coordinator at Minnesota, which drafted Jackson in the second round out of Alabama State. Nobody in the league knows him better than Bevell, who must have recommended him to Carroll. This is a new start for Jackson, who has 20 starts under his belt. If  the Vikings had not gone after Brett Favre, Jackson might be a star right now. Or not. We’re going to find out.

Kevin Kolb: Kolb must have come up in the conversation. He seemed like a good fit for Seattle, having operated a West Coast offense in Philadelphia. He blew his opportunityh in Philly a year ago, and was pushed aside byMichael Vick.  The Seahawks must have have been tempted by Kolb, but with Bevell running the offense, Jackson is a better gamble. Don’t ya think?

Charlie Whitehurst: The jury’s still out on Whitehurst, a.k.a. Clipboard Jesus. I think he’ll be the starter when the Seahawks open the season. If Seattle can become a physical team that relies on the run, Whitehurst will be a good fit. He’s been inconsistent with his deep throws, but I think that’s mostly because of his inconsistent opportunites. I don’t know why everybody’s so down on the guy. He hasn’t really been given a legit shot as a starter. He throws a great ball and he did perform well in a 16-6 win over the St. Louis Rams to get the Hawks into the postseason. Knowing that he’s the guy coming into camp might be enough to get him to that next level.

Matt Leinart: I thought he’d find his way to Seattle, but when word came down that the Hawks were signing Jackson, Leinart oopted to stay in Texas instead of competing for a job with the Seahawks.

Seattle didn’t seem to have any other QB options. It came down to Hasselbeck or Whitehurst/Jackson. I think Carroll, Schnieder and Co.  made the right decision. Don’t expect a Super Bowl run, but the Hawks might have enough to make a run for another NFC West title.

And whether it’s Whitehurst or Jackson, you gotta like the fact they’ll be throwing to 6-foot-4 Sidney Rice and 6-5 Mike Williams, on paper the  best receiving tandem the Hawks have had in years.

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