In their first move of the offseason, the Seattle Seahawks have re-signed Offensive Tackle Breno Giacomini. Usually re-signing depth at an offensive line position is boring news. But this signing is different in my eyes. Why? 3 reasons.
1. In the immediate post Super Bowl vacuum, there is nothing else happening in football, and any news is good news.
2. Breno's last name ends with "meanie", and we can always use more meanies on our squad. The real punchline is that Breno actually is about as nasty as it gets, playing until well after the whistle on running plays and consistently brutalizing opposing DEs. He talks trash all game long and gets under the opposing teams skin, on several occasions resulting in positive yardage gained through penalties called on frustrated DL.
3. Breno came in off of Green Bay's practice squad, and immediately impressed in last season's lockout shortened training camp. It's easy to forget the OL struggles last season, because the team's run game was so dominant over the final stretch. But in that final stretch, our 2 starting OTs were on IR, and as well as our starting RG. The ram shackle line performed better than the high draft pick line we fielded from the get go. Does this mean that our ram shackle line was more talented? Probably not. But what it does mean is that as the season progressed, the entire OL squad, both starters and depth, became more familiarized with our blocking scheme. It shows us that Tom Cable's system is such that once everyone understands it, he has the flexibility of switching linemen out with little impact on performance. Breno flourished in this system, so his return is not a surprise. What is a surprise are the numbers involved. On a shiny new 2 year contract, he's set to make $1.5 Mil in 2012, and $3 Mil in 2013. He also got a $1.5 Mil signing bonus. That's not backup money. That's almost Cholly Whitehurst money. It says to Breno that they value him moving forward, but perhaps more importantly, it says to our new, possibly overdrafted, linemen that they're not the only game in town.
I have to admit. I really, really like Tom Cable. I love his version of the Zone Blocking Scheme. It uses the same principles as a regular ZBS, but unlike the original, he likes his lineman big. While athleticism is still highly valued, so is brute strength. A line of 5 maulers in perfect syncopation just bludgeoning the helpless opposing DL. Crushing Darnell Docket's helmet under a size 73 cleat. I may have just taken things too far, but you get the point. I LOVE smash mouth football. I want the defense to know that we're going to run it, and which direction we're running it in, and then successfully smash it down their throats. I want to whittle away at their confidence and physicality by punching them in the mouth play after play after play. I want them to be afraid of our line of trolls wreaking havoc, so that they have to stack the box. And then, once they're on their heels, I want to throw it over the top to the endzone and punch them in the dick.
Alohawks!
