Seahawks 2021 Season Imploding: Is this the End of an Era?

Every year I try to limit myself to 1 Seahawks post because I just don't have time to cover the team full time outside my career and life. You can see my last post here where I broke down the end of last season and the moves I thought the Seahawks would/should make.

However, this Seahawks season is the worst I've seen in my adult life and it's especially perplexing given the individual successes of the talent and staff on the team. I thought I'd chime in on a few things I'm seeing that have been trending in a bad direction. 

1) Ownership: Jody Allen isn't as good as her brother plain and simple. 

You can see this with both the Portland Trailblazers in the NBA as well as the Seahawks in the NFL. Jody has little to no experience with owning or running a professional sports franchise and is too proud to admit it. Paul was a passionate fan and caring owner who wanted the best for his teams and fan bases. Jody is in it for the fame and fortune, and not so much the love of the sports.

Both franchises have been slipping under her ownership and it's only a matter of time before major shakeups happen in the form of team sales or her bringing in help to rebuild both franchises. Keep in mind she inherited billions so selling the teams or allowing them to slip into mediocrity will not bother her one bit unless she is truly a fan and truly cares. All signs this year in both leagues point towards her not caring about team success as long as they keep bringing in the cash. 

Another thing I've noticed about the Seahawks under her tenure is their reaction to some really impactful political and world issues. I felt like the Seahawks were much more involved, vocal, and quick to act during the political craziness of 2020 and it angered a good portion of the fans, and screwed over some season ticket holders as well. I do not feel like the Seahawks would have been on the forefront of the politics under Paul Allen, especially given his hot takes on his former business partner Bill Gates. I feel Jody and her choices of people running the team, have divided her team, coaches, and fan base on these issues. All in all the team's leadership could've been much more tactful during those fragile times.

2)  Management: John Schneider may not be the genius we all thought he was during the LoB era. 

I know this is an interesting take on the situation because most people want to blame the coaches and players but let's take a look at the things John has done since escaping the former Redskins and their devilishly run organization. His drafts haven't been that good and he's made some terrible trades, but most importantly he's done a bad job of addressing areas of need and managing the cap space by overpaying a handful of players.

• Drafts: Aside from a few lucky picks in the LoB and Russell Wilson, John has missed hard in his drafts, especially in the first round. I'm a huge fan of his strategy of trading down and stockpiling midround picks because it all assures that he'd hit on 1 or 2 of his picks. However, in the last few seasons he's been trading away draft capital for players the Seahawks didn't really need. Looking at the last decade of drafts you'll notice there's maybe 1 or 2 recognizable names in his draft classes and that's it. Not a lot of impactful or long lasting players coming off the board, especially in recent years.

• Trades: During the start of John's tenure he made some brilliant trades. Getting rid of bad players for picks in the draft, as well as bringing in Beast Mode. Unfortunately, since the Seahawks lost the Superbowl on the 1 yard line, he has made some desperate boneheaded trades in a failed attempt to try and be champions again by trying to bring in a big name player instead of focusing on continually building through the draft.

2013:  Traded 1st, 3rd, 7th round picks for Percy Harvin. Those Vikings picks included Xavier Rhodes and Jerick McKinnon. 2 pro bowlers for a guy who created locker room controversy and only 1 good play in Seahawks history. 

2015: Traded Max Unger and 1st round pick for Jimmy Graham. The Seahawks lost a good draft pick and a perennial pro bowl offensive lineman. 2014 was the last time I felt like the Seahawks had a decent offensive line as they traded away their best lineman for someone who couldn't block.

2017:  Traded Kearse, 2nd & 7th round picks for Sheldon Richardson. Traded 2nd & 3rd round picks for Duane Brown. Sheldon wasn't bad and Duane has been a decent LT for multiple seasons but the Seahawks lost in the divisional round to the Falcons and lost 4 draft picks in the process that season. 

2018: Traded 6th and 7th round picks for Brett Hundley & Shalom Luani. The trade for Hundley made a tiny bit of sense because the Seahawks wanted a backup QB with experience but he didn't last long in Seattle. Trading for Luani didn't make sense because he never saw the field and was cut from the team.  

2019: Traded Jacob Martin, Barkevious Mingo, 3rd round pick for Jadeveon Clowney. The Seahawks lost 2 players who saw a lot of play and a high draft pick for a known injury prone player who didn't stick around and didn't see the field much at all. 

2020: Traded two 1st round picks, a 3rd round pick, and Bradley McDougald for Jamal Adams. This may be the worst move in John's tenure and probably the one that will cost him his job. Jamal was known to be weak in coverage, have a bad attitude in the locker room, and demanding to be the highest paid player at his position. He hasn't disappointed in any of those categories. Seahawks not only lost a starting safety and 3 high draft picks in the process, but they broke the bank and assured they couldn't afford better players at positions of need. Adams can be attributed to ruining the Seahawks 2021 season and it's on John for giving up too much and breaking the bank for a mediocre safety. Don't get me wrong he's great in the box when stopping the run or rushing the passer, but he makes very bad decisions in coverage and isn't worth top safety money. Diggs is the best safety on the team and deserved more than Jamal. Sadly the Seahawks would've been better off never trading for him and using their picks on positions of need. 

3) Coaching: Pete Carroll, Shane Waldron, Ken Norton. Yeah this is an easy one as we've all seen some questionable play calling, scheming, and bad in-game adjustments in recent years. Nothing as bad as this season though.  

Pete is getting old, and in his old age I believe there's a certain stubbornness to him to not adjust to the modern game. On top of that though, I think he tries to be a player's coach a bit too much and sometimes needs to favor competition and discipline on the team. These are things he used to push on but you can tell he's gotten soft in his old age. To top it off I don't believe Pete has done a great job of surrounding himself with great assistants. If you look at the team they have ranked fairly poorly on all sides of the ball. You can blame the players for not executing, but you also have to think after seeing similar issues year after year that the coaches are also to blame. Bad blocking, bad run game, bad pass defense, blowing leads, turnover margin, penalties, missed tackles, etc... 

Looking at the defense you can tell Ken Norton just takes a long time to adjust to the roster he has but once he has figured it out (usually halfway through the season) he seems to get dialed in. Unfortunately he cannot sustain a full season of running a decent defense. 

Looking at the offense you can tell Shane Waldron was not the answer and this is on Pete for caving into Russ for picking the coach the QB wanted, instead of the coach who best fits what Pete wants to do. Shane looks lost as a play caller and is so scared of angering Russ (who helped him get the job) that he's caving into the calls Russ wants to do (which is mostly bomb it into 2 deep coverage and run it when it's 3rd and long). 

4) QB play from Russell Wilson: When you break the bank on a franchise QB you're expecting a certain level of sustained greatness. Unfortunately there's only 1 Tom Brady in the league and even he makes less than Russ. This is proof that you can't overpay any player, but also that nobody ages well. Russ's advantage was his ability to escape and elude pressure to make miracles happen, while also avoiding injuries. This is not the case any longer. Age and non-football activities have shown up and Russ hasn't adapted well at all. He looks slow, scared, and unable to execute how he used to. All the close games that were won at the end because of his play are now turning into losses because he can no longer execute game winning drives like the old days, can no longer escape pressure and scramble, and suddenly can no longer be accurate in the intermediate passing game. If Russ demands a trade I say the Hawks get as much as they can out of him and thank him for his service. If he demands even more money I say they let him walk. There's no way the Seahawks can afford to pay him what he believes he's worth if he can no longer go out there and win games for the team. 

Credit: NFL.com

All in all it feels like a good time for a Seahawks rebuild. If the team continues to be in the basement of the NFC through the end of the year they should do what they can to replace the GM and coaches, trade their highly paid players to get draft capital back, and turn the franchise around in 2-3 years. It's very painful to admit but this just may be the end of the John/Pete/Russ era. The only saving grace I see from them is admitting their faults and starting a rebuild now, similar to what the Mariners finally did.

Elyon Review: C- Grade

I've been debating writing more reviews and guides for video games instead of solely focusing on Seattle sports teams so here we go!

Elyon was a game I've been loosely following for a while since it was named Ascent: Infinite Realm. Korean MMO's usually have promise, but always fall short and Elyon really fits within this exact scenario so far, which is why I cannot recommend it in its current state. Here's what's good and bad...

Look and Sound: A-

The game looks and sounds really good. It's not quite upper echelon of graphics for a new game, but let's keep in mind this is a Western release of a game that's already been released in Asia. The character models, armor, weapons, NPC's, buildings, effects, and environment all look fairly decent. I'd put them around the same as BDO, Blade n Soul, and other Korean MMO looks. The sounds are what you'd expect from an MMO and the music is actually somewhat calming.

Character Creation: A

Like most Korean MMO's (BDO, Blade n Soul, etc) the character creation is very good. Lots of customization options and you can change the shape and size of basically any body part. Above is an example of baby legs John Wick where I made everything as large as possible on his upper body and small as possible on his lower body just for fun. It was hilarious seeing him run around smashing things with a giant hammer. This is by far the best part of the game as you can get really creative with how your character looks. The only place I'd say it falls short is the voice selections which are limited.

Character Progression: B+

The progression during alpha/beta felt very quick, but at full launch it felt slower to me, yet still faster than most MMOs. Overall the progression isn't anything too exciting. You quickly level during the introduction and the initial quest hubs help you unlock most skills within the first couple hours of gameplay. It's hard to give this a high grade because the progression doesn't feel anything noteworthy. The skills, gear, and passives didn't make a noticeable difference while leveling as I felt myself not becoming anymore powerful than at level 1. 

I'd also say the skill system, while cool and somewhat unique, locks you into a set of skills to use per class very similar to Diablo 3 where you get to equip up to 6 skills and then start spending points augmenting those skills to do something slightly different. Example: you start with a basic lightning fingers attack akin to Palpatine and if you spend 10 points augmenting that skill it'll shoot more lightning that hits a couple extra enemies. I'm not far enough along in the game to have enough points to choose the tier 3-4 augments but the tier 1-2 ones are so miniscule that they don't even seem worthwhile.

Gameplay: C 

Not many bugs but the overall gameplay loop is your standard pickup X side quests and 1 main quest and progress through the story and zones. While there is a vast open world that's very cool, there's little exploration that goes into it if you stay on the questing trail. You follow a very linear path through the game and hit any side quests you can along the way. The only positive here is the main quests all start/end at quest hubs so you can work on side quests fairly easily as you make your way between main quest hubs. Most side quests are kill and collect style which is a bummer. 

Mounting in this game is also very clunky as the transition to/from mounting is manual and there's no natural transition that I'd prefer like in WoW where you can jump on and off your mount and be instantly into combat. I usually use the autopath/autorun system more than mounting just because it's easier to set a path on the map, autorun, and do something on the side monitor while your character runs. 

Combat was very fun at first. I liked the different combos you could pull off, especially if you setup your skills and rotation to compliment each other. However, after a while it just got dull to me. I felt like I was just spamming the same skills/rotation every single engagement which just got boring. I know this is a problem in many MMO and RPG style games, but it'd be cool if they did something to create a more diverse usage of skills, such as enemy resistances, engagements that had to be close vs far away, engagements that require crowd control/blocking/dodging, etc...

User Interface: B-

The UI is ok but very cluttered and it's hard to find things you don't use often. It follows a very similar UI that I've seen in other Korean MMOs and overall I just hate how cluttered and hard to find things are. I'd prefer it if they didn't have so many complicated things within the main menu and maybe "hid" things more within sub-menus. 

I'm also not the biggest fan of having to hit a button to get my mouse cursor while I'm in my inventory. If you're in your menus then obviously character movement and combat aren't a concern and shouldn't be the priority yet the mouse controls are still largely in character control mode until you hit Alt or whatever button you set to enable mouse in menus.

Endgame: F

The dungeons are nothing too exciting but a couple are cool. Overall there's very few of them and half of them are solo instances (really? solo dungeons in a "massive multiplayer online game?"). They definitely need solo dungeons to allow co-op and should definitely add more. I haven't seen anything related to raids in this game which also falls short of MMO expectations. 

The end game "grind" appears to be mostly open world pvp similar to BDO and New World and as you know that'll only ensure the already limited player population will dwindle quickly without any real reason to play beyond max level.

Monetization: D

When Bluehole came out and said they wanted monetization to not affect gameplay I applauded them for being honest. Then I played the game and watched many reviews of the monetization and came to the conclusion this game is very pay to win in a couple aspects. To me the best monetization practice is a purely cosmetics based cash shop. I hate when boosts, buffs, gear, convenience, and quality of life upgrades are all in the cash shop as it forces you to spend money in the shop to have a more enjoyable gameplay experience. 

Buying a founders pack gave you early access and boosts which helped you level, gear, and craft/upgrade faster. This essentially is pay to win to me as it gives players who buy this pack an obvious advantage over regular launch day free to play players. The xp boosts and crafting/upgrade materials purchases you can make puts you at an advantage early on in the game when everyone else is leveling and gearing. Since the end game is open world pvp this gives the pay to win customers the advantage. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcaF6YsdtBw&t=637s 

Overall Grade: C-

I really wanted this game to be successful because it's hard to find a decent MMO these days. WoW is dying. FFXIV has a huge barrier and cost to entry for new players. ESO, GW2, and others have aged poorly. New World was a 2 week hit and then died. Elyon unfortunately falls into the same MMO trash heap where it looks promising and dies quickly. Perhaps if the devs and publisher stick it out they can make some big QoL improvements and add end game content in the future. I'll keep an eye on it in 6 months to see if anything has changed for the better, but until then there's some other promising games coming out including Destiny 2 Witch Queen and Lost Ark.

Update: the game died quickly and was taken offline

Mariners 2021: Disappointment, Hope, Belief

Within my life time I can point to any of the post 2001 Mariners teams as a lost cause. This is because the Seattle Mariners own the worst playoff drought in the history of professional sports. 

As someone who has watched the Mariners since the early 90's, when Griffey Jr entered the scene, it's been a really rough time since the magical 95 season and the 2001 record wins season. Therefore, it's very easy to be pessimistic about the M's and to watch the team from a "who cares" perspective. 

However, there's always a part of me who has wanted them to achieve what the current Astros have achieved, which is going from the laughing stock of MLB, to a power house team for years to come. That being said, I typically go to 1-5 games per season every year, which will be much harder to accomplish when games are sellouts. This is the first time in 20 years where I've felt the potential is there if the front office really wants it, but some things must first happen to achieve this so let's break that down into 3 categories. 

 1) Pitching and Defense 

     a) Run Differential 

     b) Errors 

     c) Starting Pitching 

2) Coaching 

3) Free Agency Acquisitions 

1) Pitching and Defense 

First off is pitching and defense, which are the key ingredients to any championship caliber team. I know this year's Mariners mock the term "run differential" with their own social media coined phrase "fun differential" but if you cannot hold the opposition to fewer runs than yourself then you run the risk of losing most games. 

Run Differential: The Mariners got incredibly lucky this year as they won close games and got blown out in a lot of other games causing their "fun differential" to be incredibly negative, which is very rare for a team who won 90 games. Run differential is the key factor in looking at pitching and defense because simply put the fewer runs you give up the higher your differential can be. 

It's no surprise that almost all the playoff teams were in the top 10 in this stat over the season. In fact the top 4 teams in the league also led the league in run differential. The Mariners ranked 18th in the league at -51. That's 51 more runs given up than scored over the course of the season. The only somewhat good thing here is the Mariners were -11 at home and -40 away thus they are building a better team for their home park compared to past seasons. 

Errors are a big issue adding to the run differential, as the Mariners took a step backwards this season in errors led by 2 of their "gold glovers" in Kyle Seager (14 errors) and JP Crawford (12 errors). However, the team overall ranked 7th in the league at 0.49 errors/game compared to Atlanta and Houston around 0.45 respectively. 

Overall this led to Seattle being 14th in the league in 748 total runs with 60 being unearned. This made Seattle 17th in the league giving up 4.62 runs/game. 

Pitching is the largest factor here and the Mariners need to improve their starting rotation if they want a shot at competing in the playoffs. They ranked 19th in the league in average against at .247, 16th in ERA at 4.30, and 13th in WHIP at 1.28. Note that all these values are an improvement over past seasons and mostly have to do with poor starting pitching as their bullpen ranked 8th in the league at 3.88 ERA, 5th in WHIP at 1.22, and 3rd in saves at 51. 

2) Coaching

Second factor is better coaching. Developing the talent, improving the team, and making the right calls. This is an interesting topic as Scott Servais was a final candidate for AL manager of the year as he took a team who looked terrible on paper and led them to a 90 win season. 

However, Servais has a long history of making bad managerial decisions when it comes to starting lineups, defensive substitutions, sacrificing runners over, defensive alignments, and mismanagement of the starter pitchers and bullpen. These are all subjective things and if you look at Servais' history you'll see he has 3 winning seasons in 6 years, which is middle of the road. He certainly has captured the support of the players and most of the fans with his positive attitude and tv show quotes though.

Unfortunately, the team's bad run differential and extremely low hitting average are not 100% on the players as most of them are fairly inexperienced starters in the Majors. Servais needs to have good coaches around him developing players in pitching, defense, hitting, and helping him make the right calls at the right time. 

In terms of hitting, the team's batting average was ranked dead last at 30th at .226, having the 5th most strike outs in the league, and rank 28th in OBP at .303. I put this on the coaches as Servais and gang seem to have the emphasis on extra base hits over average. As a fan of small ball (getting on base and moving runners) it hurts to see such low averages and high strike outs. 

The home runs can be fun but good teams know how to get on base and move runners, which is 100% on the coaching staff to emphasize over swinging for the fences every at bat. 

The coaching changes going into 2022 look fairly minimal but hopefully the promotion of Negron to the majors will help. Servais could still use an experienced bench coach to help him with in-game decisions as his experience in this specific area is not good. Most writers place Servais in the bottom third of MLB manager rankings which is most likely why he didn't win AL manager of the year. 

3) Free Agency

The Mariners need to make a splash to replace a couple key positions and bolster their starting rotation Key Players Leaving. 

Players Who are Free Agents:

• Kyle Seager - starting 3B, heart of the team, aging, low average, high cap at $18.5M (should let go)
• Yusei Kikuchi - SP, flashes of a good season early on, injury prone, high cap at $16.5M (should let go)
• James Paxton - SP, missed entire season which is common, younger w/ cap at $8.5M (should let go)
• Joe Smith - RP, aging, horrible season, medium cap at $4M (should let go)
• Tyler Anderson - SP, young, great mid-season acquisition as a 4th starter, cap at $2.5M (should re-sign)
• Sean Doolittle - RP, aging, hasn't been good in 3 seasons, cap at $1.5M (should let go)
• Keynan Middleton - RP, young, had a horrible season, cap at $800k (should let go)
• Jose Marmolejos - utility, young, backup bench player, cap at $575k (should let go)
• Jimmy Yacabonis - RP, young, good season, cap at $570k (should re-sign)
• Hector Santiago - RP, aging, caught cheating twice, cap at $570k (should let go)
• Robert Dugger - SP/RP, young, terrible career stats, cap at $570k (should let go)
• Ryan Weber - RP, aging, hasn't been same since bicep surgery, cap at $570k (should let go)

If I'm Dipoto I'd be looking at bolstering the starting rotation and finding a big name to put in the infield. The outfield feels covered for years to come as the Mariners already have 4 quality starters and a couple more in the minors who will be coming up. 

Weak or Missing Positions: 

• C: Tom Murphy has horrible defense, Luis Torrens is mediocre, and Cal Raleigh can't hit yet. The Mariners could trade 1-2 of these guys and find an upgrade in FA. 
• Pedro Severino is an intriguing name here as he's young and coming off a good season on a terrible Orioles club. Luke Maile is also a serviceable replacement.

• 3B: Seager is most likely gone due to his age and cost but there's a few good names out there in FA. 
• Kris Bryant, Eduardo Escobar, Jonathan Villar, Hanser Alberto, and Matt Duffy. Bryant may be too costly, but Escobar and Duffy are young, affordable, and each are coming off solid seasons. Duffy is also capable of playing anywhere in the infield which helps. 

• SP: Kikuchi seems to be leaving for Japan and Paxton can't seem to pitch a full season. Anderson may sign elsewhere but hopefully gets retained. However, this will leave the M's down at least 2 SP's. This is great because Kikuchi and Seager could clear enough cap to afford a big arm in the rotation which the Mariners desperately need if they intend to make a playoff push. This position is their biggest need. 
• Noah Syndergaard, Clayton Kershaw, Marcus Stroman, Kevin Gausman, Carlos Rodon top the charts for the big name acquisition. Most of these guys will land $20M+/yr deals for 3-6 year contracts but they're all all-star caliber players who can help carry a team to the playoffs. 
• Other names for a second spot in the rotation are Alex Cobb, Danny Duffy, Drew Smyly, Michael Pineda, Zach Davies, Robbie Ray, Anthony DeSclafani, Kwang-hyun Kim, Alex Wood, Julio Teheran, John Gant

• RP: The Mariners had a top 5 bullpen last year but are about to lose quite a few arms. SP acquisitions could help them move some young starters who struggled into a bullpen role to help fill it but there's quite a few names out there. RP's seem to swing year to year so it's tough to gauge talent based on what the M's did last year. 
• There's about 40+ RP's available with WARs above 0.1 so Dipoto has plenty of options to fill out the pen. Some intriguing names out there include: Steve Cishek, Kenley Jansen, Ryan Tepera, Andrew Chafin, Kendall Graveman, Brad Hand, Alex Colome, Hunter Strickland

• Note the M's could make a move at 1B, 2B, or SS and move some players around. For instance, signing Marcus Semien and moving Toro to 3B or signing Anthony Rizzo and moving Ty France to 3B or DH.

Diablo 2 Resurrected - Trading

If you want to listen instead of read you can go to my Youtube channel here: https://youtu.be/AwxF6XInUcg

Ok you have now beaten D2R and are looking for better gear. Trading is THE best way to get rid of stuff you don't want and replace it with stuff you need. Here's how this works best...

1) Understand the Market. Know what does or doesn't have value

• Any time something drops and you're unsure if it's worthwhile to trade just look up its value in a number of spots
• Watch youtube guides, utilize sites such as traderie, arreats summit, diablo2.io, purediablo, or join the sanctuary trading discord 
• Look at trade games: this gives you a feel for what values people are placing on items at any given moment, albeit what people are selling vs what people are actually spending is not always the same
• Never buy something for a high price or sell something too low. 
• You'll notice 90% of people are offering things outside of their price ranges because they aren't doing their research. Chances are these people aren't selling anything.
• You can use your understanding of the market to undercut everyone to make a quick sell
• Ex: you see 90% of people are offering your item for a Lem so you list it for a Ko

2) Host or Join Trade Games

• This is the easiest way in game to find gear you want or to get rid of gear. Do not be intimidated by demanding people. If you know the market then these games are very quick and easy to get what you want and get rid of what you don't want
• Items for pgems or pgems for items are great starter games for trading as you can get rid of or get your hands on low value items very easily and cheaply. 
• XYZ for scr or script or desc usually means to read the game's description because game titles are character limited

3) Discord: Join Sanctuary (trading) - Diablo 2 Resurrected discord

• NOTE: Since I made this guide the Discord imploded due to a greedy admin who wanted to sell out the discord users to ads for real money transactions (which are against the game's ToS). As a result a lot of people have jumped ship to d2jsp where you use "forum gold (fg)" to trade for items.
• I am not a d2jsp fan because you can use other games and real money to buy FG which you can then flip for D2R items so I consider it p2w. However, this is the most active trade scene now.
• Old school D2 everything trading was in game which was annoying but now in discord you can post what you want to sell (WTS) or what you want to buy (WTB)
• You can do a search for item names and see what people are buying or selling them for to establish a grasp on the market
• Trading is super simple as you can simply message someone that you want their item, you're willing to pay with X, which region you're playing in (NA/EU/Asia), and then create a game for them to join

4) Track Items in a Spreadsheet

• I can't stress enough how important it is to know what items you have and which character they're stored on
• You can copy and paste from a spreadsheet to discord for quick WTS posts
• Note: you must cntrl+shift+v to paste as text into discord, otherwise you post a screenshot which isn't searchable
• I personally use this to track what I'm selling, what I've bought, and what I've sold so I can keep tabs on all my items but also gauge what items people want and what they're willing to pay for them.

5) Create a "Mule"

• Every pro trader has at least 1 Mule character that holds onto items you're trading. This helps reduce clutter on the characters you actually play the game with
• Mules can sit at lvl 1 and never be played. They're simply created for an extra storage tab. However, this means all trade games you create/join must be normal difficulty and trades must be done in Act 1 camp

6) USE THE IN-GAME TRADE FEATURE

• Simply click the other player's character in the game and it'll open up a trade prompt
• Do NOT trade by dropping items.
• Do NOT cntrl+click anything or you'll drop it accidentally
• Items must be dragged one at a time into the trade window which is annoying but safer
• Items can be previewed in trade window so do NOT click accept trade until you hover over the item being sent to you to ensure it's what you expect and has the stats you want

7) Do Not Hold Junk

• This is hard for me too but if you have items that simply have no value or take forever to trade then they are holding up inventory slots for potentially better gear. It's worth noticing what items are currently hot and which are not
• As a season or ladder progresses you'll notice starter gear becomes less and less valuable and end game gear and perfect rolls become the only things people look for
• Early season magic find (MF) gear also has tremendous value but tanks as soon as the MF folks get what they want

Diablo 2 Resurrected - Speed Leveling Guide

If you wish to listen along instead of reading, please go to my Youtube video instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOgOI5LYPAM

While D2R remains a buggy mess with huge server issues, the key to having alts will be in the ability to get rushed or find games to jump into to help get you through the Normal/Nightmare/Hell Acts. 

1) Getting rushed: For this I do NOT recommend a G-rush aka glitched rush. Simply have a friend rush you or join a discord (such as sanctuary) or reddit asking to be rushed. Most people will ask you for your forge and you can safely give away your normal/nightmare forges as the drops are no better than Countess. 

In Hell I only recommend a friend rushing you or not being so desperate to rush for forge because you'll want the rune that drops from it for trade bait later.

2) Join or Host Public Games: This is self explanatory but you're essentially looking to host or join games where the quests you need aren't completed yet. 

The key to playing through mandatory quests are as follows... 

• Act 1: Andariel
• Act 2: Staff of Kings (get cube too if you didn't yet), Summoner, and Duriel (this is by far the worst act to try and do publicly but sometimes you get lucky) 
• Note: get cube in halls of dead, get staff in maggott lair, get viper amulet in viper temple, kill summoner in arcane sanctuary, kill duriel in the correct tomb once you or someone in your party have the staff. 
• Other Note: you cannot enter the arcane sanctuary, canyon of magi, or the tomb if you weren't present when the staff quests were completed and summoner was killed. However, you can still get Duriel quest credit if you're in town when he's killed. 
• Another Note: Sometimes Jehryn gets glitched in town but if you stand near his door he will eventually walk close enough to talk to.
• Act 3: Travinical Council & Mephisto (easy if you or someone has the Trav waypoint)
• Act 4: Diablo (easy if you have river of flame WP)
• Act 5: Ancients & Baal
• Note: Ancients can't be done on normal until level 20, on nightmare until level 40, on hell until level 60. 

The key here is to rush to Ancients in each difficulty then grind out your levels in specific ways, mostly Baal runs. Here's my typical rush guide...

Normal: Rush to Ancients 

• Kill Andariel
• Get Horadric Cube (Halls of Dead 2 in Dry Hills, Get Staff (Maggot Lair 3 in Far Oasis), Get Viper amulet (Claw Viper Templte 2 outside of Lost City), Kill Summoner, Kill Duriel
• Note: you can get A2 credit simply by being partied in town during quest completions but you won't be able to enter the Arcane Sanctuary and talking to Jehryn is difficult if you don't smash the tainted altar and build the staff yourself
• Kill Trav Council, Kill Meph
• Note: you need Khalim's to enter Durance. If someone else has it you have to enter Durance through Trav and walk to Meph yourself as TP's from other players in Durance won't work until you complete the Khalim's Will quest line.
• Khalim's pieces are Spider Cavern in Spider Forest, Flayer Dungeon in Flayer Jungle, and Sewers in Upper Kurast.
• Exploit: if you have Trav WP then enter a game that already completed Meph. You should be able to enter Durance and get to level 2 and find the WP there. Start a fresh game to kill Meph and you can run from Durance WP to Meph. This is the fastest way to bypass A3 if you can get trav WP and a game that already killed Meph.
• Kill Diablo (aka big D)
• Get Ancients WP

Level 1-15 Tristram runs (trist, tristy, etc...)

Level 15-20 Tomb runs (Tal rasha's tomb in Act 2) 

Do Normal Ancients once level 20.

Level 20-25 Normal cows (some people stay in tombs until 25 but cows is faster if you find a game) 

Nightmare: Rush to Ancients but you can skip cube, trist, tomb runs, and cows. 

Level 25-40 doing Normal Baal runs 

• Note: This is hard given current server status but otherwise easy once you get into a normal cadence of games. Simply cntrl+a and cntrl+c the game you're in. When the next game is up just cntrl+v and replace the previous numbered game with the new number and cntrl+a cntrl+c again so you have it ready for the next one. 

Do Ancients & Baal for quest once level 40.

Hell: Rush to Ancients exactly the same as Nightmare. 

This is a much harder rush if you want to save your forge. A good rusher will take your forge and get you through to ancients. I prefer using friends or public groups and grinding it out myself so I can save my forge.

Level 40-60 doing Nightmare Baal runs

Kill Ancients & Baal for quest

Congratulations Hero of Sanctuary you have now beat the game and are ready for the end game. Note that Baal runs are the best source for XP in the game but leveling above 80 gets slower and slower.

Seahawks 2021

 

As the crazy pandemic and politics filled NFL season has come to an end it's time to look forward to 2021. 

The Seahawks have a lot of work to do between finding a new Offensive Coordinator and dealing with a lot of free agents potentially leaving the team. Overall the Seahawks don't have a lot of cap space, which will make it difficult to retain almost all their starters, but after a first round playoff exit that's probably for the best. 

Let's dive into who they might keep, who they might let go, and which spots they need to fill to come back stronger next season. In order of who they might re-sign and most notable players first.

Unrestricted Free Agents:

• KJ Wright (re-sign if less than $9M, lifetime Seahawk coming off a great season after moving back to his og position, ranked #22 overall LB)
• Shaq Griffin (re-sign if less than $8M, expecting big offers similar to Dunbar but $8M/yr lands him where he ranks, #26 overall CB)
• Ethan Pocic (re-sign if less than $5M which is ~#20 ranked C/G spot, very good when healthy, #23 overall C)
• Benson Mayowa (re-sign if less than $3M, he's below avg at his position but showed promise once healthy, #64 overall DE)
• Nick Bellore (re-sign if less than $1.5M, probowl season in ST and affordable)
• David Moore (re-sign if less than $900K, one of his best seasons but Hawks can find similar production easily so he'll be on a short leash, #70 overall WR)
• Cedric Ogbuehi (re-sign if less than $3M, versatile and affordable backup, #60 overall T) 
• Damarious Randall (re-sign if less than $1.1M, an underrated backup, #18 overall S)
• Chris Carson (gone, Hawks want to re-sign but projected a big payday of 4 years/$28M, also very beat up after his rookie contract so production will drop most likely, #8 overall RB, frees $600k)
• Greg Olsen (gone, injury prone and will retire to the booth, frees up $7M)
• Bruce Irvin (gone, injury prone and his career seems over, frees up $5.5M)
• Mike Iupati (gone, injury prone and likely to retire, #18 overall G, frees up $2.5M)
• Jacob Hollister (gone, price tag too high for a 3rd string TE, #52 overall TE, frees up $3.3M)
• Quinton Dunbar (gone, injuries and off field drama made his Hawks debut sour, DJ Reed outplayed him, projected 3 year/$52M contract, frees up $1.9M)
• Carlos Hyde (gone, Hawks have too many RB's behind him who cost less, #31 overall RB, frees up $2.75M)
• Geno Smith (gone,  Hawks will draft a QB and bring in another to compete for backup, #45 overall QB, frees up $1.2M)
• Neiko Thorpe (gone, injuries and avg lately, frees up $1.2M)
• Branden Jackson (gone, not very good productivity and potential health issues with spine, frees up $1.05M)
• Phillip Dorsett (gone, out all season with injuries, frees up $1.05M)
• Josh Gordon (gone, out all season with off field issues, frees up $1.05M)
• Damontre Moore (gone, out most of the season with off field issues, #90 overall DE, frees up $900K)
• Lano HIll (gone, out most of the season with injuries, Hawks have Randall and Neal as better backups, frees up $800K)
• Jayson Stanley (gone, converted WR to CB who couldn't make Jags, Hawks, or Falcons active rosters, frees up $675K)

Restricted Free Agents:

• Jordan Simmons (ERFA so Hawks can re-sign for league min of ~$825K, versatile backup, tied with Lewis at #44 overall G) 
• Bryan Mone (ERFA so Hawks can re-sign for league min of ~$750K, affordable backup, #66 overall DT) 
• Ryan Neal (ERFA so Hawks can re-sign for league min of ~$825K, affordable backup, #3 overall SS) 
• Linden Stephens (ERFA so Hawks can re-sign for league min of $825K, serviceable backup and ST contributor, #120 overall CB) 
• Kyle Fuller (re-sign if less than $1M, RFA so Hawks can match offers, versatile and affordable backup, tied for #23 overall C with Pocic) 
• Poona Ford (re-sign if less than $4M, RFA so Hawks can match offers, very productive during rookie contract, #43 overall DT) 
• Shaquem Griffin (gone, productive on ST but will have to compete with rookies for playtime, #99 overall LB, frees up $750K) 

My projected re-signs would cost ~$39.725M next season and the players gone would free up ~$32.225M thus giving the Hawks $7.5M against their cap space.

Seahawks top priorities in FA and draft:
OL, DB, TE, RB, WR, DT

Potential FA signings to fill top priorities:

• OL: Depends on who the Seahawks keep around. Potential to lose Pocic, Iupati, Simmons, Ogbuehi, and Fuller. I can't imagine they'd lose them all but it seems a starting caliber G would be ideal if Iupati retires or leaves.
• Plenty of starting C & G available in FA in the $1-$5M range with ratings similar to or better than Hawks. Expect the Hawks to grab 1-3 of them.
• 25 OL are expected to go in the first 5 rounds of the draft so the Hawks could grab a quality OL in the draft too.

• DB: Adams will demand a blockbuster extension so Hawks will have a tough time keeping Adams, Dunbar, and Griffin together for the future. Expecting Reed & Flowers to hold the RCB side another season and Griffin to re-sign to stay starting LCB, unless another team is desperate for his skills.
• If Hawks lose Griffin and Dunbar there's very few quality starters available at affordable prices. Expect most to demand big money in the $8M+ range. 
• There are about 10 or so starting FA CBs available for < $8M/yr so expect the Hawks to sign one if they lose both Dunbar and Griffin.
• Draft is also stacked with 18 CBs expected in the first 5 rounds so expect the Hawks to draft a CB.
• Adams will want to be the top paid S in the league the next few years so expect him to demand $15M/yr for 3-4 years, which would eat a little over half the Hawks' cap. 
• Hawks could also trade Adams if he doesn't get the offer he wants and he may also sit out until he's paid or traded. Adams proved to be great tackler and pass rusher but his discipline in pass coverage needs major improvements. He's also going to have several off season surgeries.
• Notable starting alternatives available at SS are McDougald (who the Hawks traded for Adams along with draft picks), Neal, Joseph, Sendejo. 
• 11 Safeties are expected to go in the first 5 rounds of the draft so don't expect the draft to fill this spot for the Hawks

• TE: With the loss of Olsen, and possibly Hollister, this will be a huge hole. Hawks drafted a couple TE last year, but they haven't panned out so far (one even played DE for a game). Hawks need a quality TE to replace Olsen and to compliment injury prone Dissly.
• Notable names at < $5M in FA are Eifert, Lewis, Everett, Burton, Rodgers, Alie-Cox. Expect the Hawks to grab a decent TE in FA.
• Only 5 TE's expected in the first 5 rounds of the draft so drafting one this year is unlikely.

• RB: It's unlikely the Hawks can afford to pay Carson what he's owed. Especially if they want to keep Adams and Griffin. Unless he takes a home team discount expect him to move on. So far Homer and Dallas feel like busts and Penny is injury prone, thus leaving a big gap for a work horse RB. If they also move on from Carson and Hyde then it's FA or draft time.
• There is a long list of notable FAs available at < $5M price tag so expect the Hawks to grab one.
• 12 RBs expected to go in the first 5 rounds of the draft so the Hawks could also draft one.

• WR: If Hawks keep Moore then they simply need someone who competes with him and Swain for WR3/4 to add some depth behind Metcalf and Lockett. They will need an affordable veteran who is willing to block.
• Quite a few WRs are available for < $1M but none who would re-sign for that value have better ratings than Moore & Swain so don't expect a notable WR signing unless the Hawks move on from Moore.
• 24 WRs are expected to go in the first 5 rounds of the draft so expect the Hawks to definitely grab 1 or 2.

• DT: If the Hawks lose Poona then they will down to just Jarran Reed as a starting quality DT, with a handful of backups to rotate in. Every season the Hawks sign a couple veteran DTs so I expect the same. 
• There are plenty of FA DT's at Poona's < $4M price tag so expect the Hawks to grab at least one.
• There are 13 DTs expected to go in the first 5 rounds of the draft so don't expect the Hawks to draft one.

Draft: 
The Hawks are decimated in picks for a couple seasons due to recent trades, most notably for Adams and Dunbar. Currently they have 5 total picks in rounds 2, 4, 5, 7, 7. There's a chance for more picks if they choose to trade a current player and they could also gain compensatory picks if players leave for big contracts elsewhere. Expecting them to draft OL, DB, RB, WR, DL.

Coaching staff changes: 
The firing of OC Schotty was a bit surprising because Pete said prior to playoffs he planned to keep his primary coaches around for next season. However, after the loss they decided to move on. It's not so surprising as you could see the offense sputtered midway through the season and Schotty was unable or unwilling to adjust from "let Russ cook" to "let's control the clock and eliminate turnovers" which is what Pete prefers. 

Pete will need to find a solid OC who has a good history with a solid run game and play action play calling. A little creativity with Russ, DK, and Lockett would also go a long way, but not too much. Any OC coming in has to understand this is Pete's team and he'll always prefer an old school game plan to a new school one. 

There are plenty of assistant jobs at jeopardy as well. Player injuries, especially on defense, killed the Hawks this season and the OL ranked fairly poorly on the right side, so expect some changes to assistants.

Projected 2020 starters: Not expecting too many big changes to existing starters unless too many players leave in Free Agency.

Offense:
QB: Russell Wilson - (there's a slim chance the firing of Schotty and the run first offense could irk Russ to demand a trade. If so expect the Hawks to trade for someone starting caliber in addition to draft picks so they can bolster their future)
RB: Rashaad Penny
WR1: Tyler Lockett
WR2: DK Metcalf
WR3: David Moore/Freddy Swain
LT: Duane Brown
LG: new FA signing
C: Ethan Pocic 
RG: Damien Lewis
RT: Brandon Shell 
TE: Will Dissly

Defense:
RE: Rasheem Green (backup LJ Collier)
DTs: Jarran Reed & Poona Ford 
LE: Carlos Dunlap
CBs: Shaquille Griffin & DJ Reed
LBs: KJ Wright, Bobby Wagner, Jordyn Brooks
SS: Jamal Adams
FS: Quandre Diggs