From the moment Pete Carroll was hired by the Seahawks last January, the rhetoric started.
Always compete. Win forever. Blah, blah, blah. We saw that song and dance a year before that with Jim Mora, and it didn't impress us then, either -- and that was before a pathetic five-win campaign in which all of his "accountability" bluster resulted in him completely losing the team by the end of the year.
But Carroll was so set on "competing" that he even boldly declared the Seahawks -- after just nine wins in the previous two seasons -- were not rebuilding. They had their sights set on winning immediately.
So, tell me, Pete: How in the world are you trying to win immediately if you make a trade right before the season starts that so clearly makes your team worse now?
I'm not here to judge whether the trade is a good one or a bad one. I'll leave that to people who know a lot more about football than I do, and besides -- the impact of trades simply can't be measured immediately.
However, if you're telling me that I have the opportunity to trade the 2010 season of Josh Wilson -- in a marginal division in which you need as many capable players in the secondary as possible -- for Kam Chancellor, Owen Schmitt, Will Herring or David Kirtman (the last four fifth round picks of the Seahawks), I'm pretty sure I'll take Wilson, thank you very much.
Which is why this move smacks of rebuilding. That's not evil in and of itself. But if you want to win forever, Pete, you've got to always compete.
And this ain't competing.