1) What were the pros and cons to Harvin’s game?
Percy Harvin is an athletic freak of nature, the sort of rare physical specimen that a general manager would give their eyeteeth to draft. He’s impossibly fast, he has an uncanny ability to see the entire field, and he makes impossible catches look routine. He also runs with the short, choppy steps of a running back rather than a wide receiver’s long-legged stride, so he can make a lot of guys miss when he gets the ball in space, and he’s fantastic at maximizing his yardage on every touch. Unfortunately, he’s also incredibly fragile and prone to lingering injuries that keep him out of action for weeks at a time. So yeah, Harvin is a phenomenal weapon to have on offense, but you have to limit his snaps per game if you want him to stay healthy enough to be available the entire season. He’s also got one other glaring problem, which brings me to your next question.
2) Why didn’t it work out in Seattle for him?
Harvin didn’t work out in Seattle because he was a major locker room cancer. After he was traded to New York, word began to filter out from Seattle that he has serious anger problems that resulted in fistfights with a few of his Seahawks teammates during the 2013 season, and during the 2014 season he apparently divided the locker room into pro- and anti-Harvin camps by accusing Russell Wilson of not being black enough, whatever the hell that means. The last straw was the week six game against Dallas, when Harvin straight up refused to go back into the game during the fourth quarter while the Hawks were trying to mount a last minute comeback — a few days later, he was on a plane headed for New York.
3) I know he only played a handful of games with you guys, but were you disappointed you guys dealt him?
My first reaction was disappointment, sure, but that went away pretty quickly after all the ugly stories about his behind-the-scenes behavior started to come to light. Besides, his presence was not having a positive effect on the offense. Seattle’s offense has been at its best the past few years when it relies on a barrage of battering-ram runs punctuated by sheer ludicrous magic from Wilson. A big part of the reason for the team’s early season slump was that all their attempts to work Harvin into the game plan split their offensive focus and took a lot of touches away from Marshawn Lynch. Granted, all those jet sweeps and so forth worked well against Green Bay in week one, but after that they swiftly began to lose their effectiveness, partly because defenses knew what to watch for and partly because executing on plays that require precision timing just isn’t a strength of this offense — they want to move the ball by punching you in the mouth repeatedly, not by finessing it down the field. Once Harvin was gone, they went back to relying heavily on their bread-and-butter Beast Mode tactics and the wins began to pile up once more.
Today, the only regret I have about the whole affair is all the draft picks they gave up to acquire him (a 1st rounder in 2014 and a 3rd in 2015), but I can’t fault Pete Carroll and John Schneider for taking a gamble on a troubled player with tons of talent — a similar gamble worked out pretty well for them a few years earlier when they acquired Lynch from the Bills (albeit at a much lower cost).
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