The Seahawks are a Complete Disaster

In case you haven't heard, 3 major skill position players will be out at least until the Seahawks' week 4 bye - RB Maurice Morris, WR Deion Branch, and WR Bobby Engram.

The 'Hawks have exactly 2 receivers on their roster that have been on the team longer than 48 hours: Courtney Taylor and Logan Payne, not exactly fantasy stalwarts. They have signed mediocrities Samie Parker and Billy McMullen to fill a couple of jerseys, and QB Seneca Wallace will also get into the mix. Oh yeah, and QB Matt Hasselbeck is still recovering from back injuries that limited him throughout the pre-season.

So time to rely on the running game, right? Not so fast. Starting guard Rob Sims is out for the year with a torn pectoral muscle, so an offensive line that has not been very good the last couple of years just got weaker.

The Seahawks now have to rely on Julius Jones, who had a 3.6 yards per carry average with Dallas last year, while Marion Barber had a 4.8 yard average behind the same offensive line. The 3.9 YPC we projected for Jones in 2008 seems generous, but we will stick with it.

The good news is that the Seahawks' next two opponents, San Fransisco and St Louis, have poor run defenses, which should help Jones.

In their blowout loss to the Bills last week, the Seahawks only managed 21 carries as a team, but we will assume 22 for Jones in each of the next 2 games, as the Seahawks should keep things closer against this level of competition.

Using our True Player Value defense ratings, we have Jones with 88 yards against the 49ers and 94 against the Rams. Plus, with no receivers to throw to, he should get a fair amount of check-down passes from Hasselbeck. Even if we de-rate Jones to 3.5 yards per carry, he should get over 80 yards in each game, after adjusting for opponent. These numbers might be good enough to let Jones wrestle the full-time gig from Morris, at least until the Seahawks face stiffer competition (the Giants and Packers loom on the other side of the bye). So if you are a Jones owner, he may be startable the next couple of weeks, at which time it will be time to sell high before he faces the better run defenses and/or starts sharing time again with Maurice Morris.