Seahawks At Chargers: Preseason Week One Recap.. Kind Of

So, I was going to re-watch the Seahawks glorious and hard-fought victory against the Chargers this weekend in order to bring you in-depth, well thought out and intelligent analysis of the pluses and minuses of the Seahawks performance and why we should be happy and/or sad about it.

That was my plan. It didn't work out. First, -- in an apparent effort to further anger their fans after locking out players for several months and threatening the existence of a preseason or an actual regular season, the NFL is charging fans $20 bucks to watch replays of Preseason games online. A-Holes. Not only this, but because this so-called "NFL," as it's known 'round these parts, didn't alienate their primary source of income enough with their public relations coup this summer, they had the Seahawks/Chargers game "Blacked Out" in San Diego because it didn't sell out. They blacked it out online too. So when I went to watch it on Friday night, after signing up and begrudgingly paying the $20 for something they should be giving away for free as a peace offering, I couldn't watch the one game I really wanted to watch.

So I went and got drunk.

Saturday, I attended the SBNation blogger conference in Las Vegas and because of the open bar after dinner I didn't get a chance to revisit my attempt to watch the game. Because I went and got drunk.

Sunday, I sat in two airports (Las Vegas and Denver) that offer free wi-fi.. and I know I'm not supposed to complain about something when it's free, but when it's slower than a 1994 dial-up modem (or whatever the slowest internet back then was), I think it's ok to complain a little. It wasn't slow so much as it just plain didn't work. If there's one thing I HATE,... it's a slow internet connection. I'm a nerd, I know.

I didn't go get drunk for a third day in a row, but I was forced to sit in the Denver airport and write, sans an internet connection, and thus I have no specifics to talk about.

So here's what I think about the Seahawks' first preseason game: First, it was really ugly. It wasn't like, back from college for Thanksgiving, --go out and play tackle football with your buddies in the mud-- ugly, but close. Tarvaris Jackson looked jittery. The O-line looked disjointed at times. The first team defense got worked by Philip Rivers and his cronies. The Seahawks ended up winning the game because their 3rd and 4th string guys are better than San Diego's.

Which is awesome!

In all honesty though, I thought it was really fun to watch all the youngsters play. It's fun to get to see them out there, knock some skulls, and over-celebrate everything. The guys I've been looking forward to seeing in a Seahawks uniform were finally out there on the field. And I thought they looked pretty good. Everyone says that the preseason is meaningless but I don't really buy into that. It's real game action and the players, by and large, are playing for their jobs and careers so it's not like they're just going through the motions. On the contrary, they're playing as hard as they can because their jobs are on the line.

You can't completely discount how they play because they're going up against the opposing team's 3rd and 4th string guys too, who are doing the same thing, and this ends up offering fairly balanced competition.

Preseason games don't tell you how a player will perform when the 1st string guys are opposing them, but it does help you get an idea of which guys might stick; which guys are head and shoulders above their competition's backups and players that were taken near to yours in the Draft. It tells you which guys are ahead of their own teammates. It tells you which guys make plays. It tells you which guys look lost.

You can't expect these players to perform as well when going up against the 1s, but you have to start somewhere in the NFL, and if you can't compete during the preseason, odds are you won't get the chance to see the regular season.

Maybe I'm just excited to watch real football. But either way, I love the preseason.

Oh, and the Seahawks won the game 24-17. The end.