Though today is the day this post began, its genesis is actually long, long ago. It was a simpler time. A more innocent time. Your kids could play outside and only get robbed, raped, or mugged once a week. A young Korean man by the name of PSY had just set the world ablaze by riding an imaginary horse. It was a different time, a different world. It was New Year's Day, 2012. The setting? Historic Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wisconsin.
As was the trend way back when, the Green Bay Packers had already sealed victory in the NFC North. Their QB, Aaron Rodgers, put in for some sick time and took the day off. The man taking his place was a plucky young LSU alumnus named Matt Flynn. This was not the first the Packer faithful had seen of Matt Flynn. In 2010, he first substituted for Rodgers in a game against the New England Patriots and made quite a showing for himself, throwing three touchdown passes and 257 yards. The Packers lost that game, but the fact remained that the team had established Matt Flynn as a solid backup.
Back to 2012. Flynn got the nod against Detroit and, to use highly-scientific football terms, wrecked shit. Six touchdowns. 480 yards. Single-game records, both of them. Matt Flynn had a better individual game than any QB in the storied history of the Green Bay Packers. Was there a QB controversy brewing in Titletown? Would Aaron Rodgers be free to sign with the Jets after the season? Did the Pope, indeed, shit in the woods?
Nah. Rodgers returned in the playoffs to be bounced by the Giants. Their season was over. And Matt Flynn was a free agent. The talking heads at ESPN were still raving about his near-500 yard performance. He briefly became the hottest free agent QB on the market, until some guy (I forget his name offhand) with a busted neck & a lot of playoff failure in his past was released by his team. Oh well, there would be plenty of money to go around, right? Right.
Matt Flynn had a few factors working against him, the first being the monumental blunder of the Arizona Cardinals only one season before. You see, the Philadelphia Eagles had pulled off the football heist of the century when they convinced Arizona to trade a second-round draft pick and, at the time, their best defensive player to the Eagles for a guy whose career trajectory looked an awful lot like Matt Flynn's, Kevin Kolb. The Cardinals were the most QB-desperate team in the NFL at the time, and they took the bait. Kolb's head subsequently fell off. Bad trade. Bad news. Bad omen.
The second factor working against Flynn was the 2012 Draft class. This class may have been the deepest in the history of football regarding potential star QB's. Andrew Luck. Robert Griffin III. Ryan Tannehill. Brandon Weeden (think of the times, folks, ignore your hindsight). Kirk Cousins. Nick Foles. Brock Osweiler. A few more. If you wanted a franchise QB, this was the market to go buy them. This factor would haunt poor Matty Flynn in more ways than one.
So we skip ahead a few weeks, and free agency has begun. Flynn isn't getting the offers a guy with his creds should be getting. Cleveland & Washington wanted nothing to do with him. Miami interviewed him & sent him on his way. Indianapolis had decided in roughly the third week of the previous preseason that Andrew Luck was their guy. Of course, Arizona stayed as far away from this as they possibly could have, presumably having learned their lesson. What was going on here? This guy was a sure thing, wasn't he? Surely the Vikings, having been humiliated in public by having chosen Christian Ponder in the first round of the previous draft, would snatch this up and run with it, right? None of these things happened. Then the Seahawks showed up.
The Pete Carroll Seattle Seahawks. The only team in the history of the National Football league to make the playoffs despite having a losing record. A team "led" by Tavaris Jackson. Matt Flynn had found his home. He didn't get the big-money contract from Seattle he'd expected, but his pride had been abused enough at this point so that a 4-year, $20 million contract ($9 million guaranteed) was sufficient. The Seahawks were widely seen as a team on the rise. Matt Flynn was a young starting-caliber QB with a lot to prove. Was this a match made in heaven, or what? Then the draft happened, and the Seahawks did did something that was at the time seen as highly unusual.
In the third round of the 2012 draft, the Seattle Seahawks selected a smallish, overachieving QB named Russell Wilson from the University of Wisconsin. A real head-scratcher. He was short, but he was fast. He had average arm strength, but he was accurate. No big deal, brah. This was Matt Flynn's house. Little Wilson would dutifully sit on the bench and know his place. Matt Flynn was on course to be the greatest QB from LSU since Jamarcus Russell. It was written. It would be done.
Russell Wilson won the starting QB job in training camp.
What?
Pete Carroll's coaching philosophy was almost ridiculous in its simplicity. The best player at any given position will play. That's it. Fuck a contract. To hell with guaranteed money. None of that matters. Pete Carroll put the best possible team on the field.
The Seahawks' defensive coordinator at the time? Gus Bradley.
To be continued.....
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