2013 NFL Preview: Seattle Seahawks

With the draft long behind us, not to mention most Free Agency action, it's about time we take a last look at the offseason moves that our upcoming opponents made. In these posts, I'll note some key additions to each team while also evaluating each team's weaknesses. For the sake of easing into it, I figured we could all start with a team that has been discussed heavily, the Seattle Seahawks.

As I said, here at NN we have been prone to discussing the Seahawks, the team that will likely be our biggest competition for the NFC West title. This discussion most earnestly started with the trade for WR Percy Harvin. The receiving corps last season was pretty bad for Seattle. Apparent wunderkind Harvin is an attempt to fix that. The Seahawks didn't add any other major offensive players, except for RB Christine Michael and - perhaps - WR Chris Harper. Both were chosen in the draft. This surprised me considering the fact that the o-line in Seattle is pretty bad. While Russell Wilson has an affinity for finding passing lanes and for scrambling, he should be hitting turf pretty frequently behind that offensive line.

Defensively, the Seahawks made quite a few additions to an already stacked unit. In free agency, they pulled in DEs Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett, CB Antoine Winfield and Marcus Trufant, and DT Tony McDaniel. In the draft, their best pick may have been NT Jesse Williams. By and large, this Defense looks stout. The Secondary is clearly the best in the NFL. I'm a bit suspicious of their LBs, though there are certainly some solid players in that unit (looking at you, K.J Wright and Bobby Wagner). I'm not also totally sold on the DL, even with the addition of Avril. This is, ultimately, nitpicking. The defense is quite good and the new additions look to keep it that way.