The loss of Mike Green is important. He played very well in camp and the preseason and was going to be the primary backup at both safety positions. Green was also realistically challenging Michael Boulware for some starts. Losing him for the year raises a lot of questions about the secondary. Fortunately, we are going to pull a RadioShack - "You've Got Questions. We've got Answers."
The biggest question is what the team will do if one of the starting safeties gets injured. FS Ken Hamlin is coming off a fractured skull and SS Michael Boulware had offseason knee surgery, so more than likely one or both of them are going to miss some games this year. How to replace Ken Hamlin has the easier answer: Jordan Babineaux. Big Play Babs has the tackling, playmaking, and coverage ability to be a productive free safety. The only Seahawk with more tackles than Babineaux last year was MLB Lofa Tatupu. Babineaux was also tied with Boulware and Tatupu for the team lead with 4 takeaways. Babineaux can get more work at free safety in practice and still be counted on to play nickel corner. The qualities in a good nickel corner and a free safety are not all that different.
Babineaux should not be considered the answer at strong safety though. He would be fine in some situations, but would really struggle in others. A strong safety plays a lot like a free safety in passing situations, but the strong safety needs to play like a linebacker in other situations. The Seahawks could scheme to protect Babineaux if he had to play strong safety, but that would be a big change from what they do with Boulware, who played linebacker in college.
The team could keep Etric Pruitt or Oliver Celestin around, both can play either safety position, but neither player is especially talented. Someone decent might get cut from another squad, but the Seahawks have the solution already on the team, and his name is Julian Peterson. Julian Peterson is an excellent linebacker, but his versatility and athleticism are his most important assets.
If Michael Boulware needs to miss some time, then Julian Peterson can drop back into Michael Boulware's strong safety position. That would even give him an argument to wear #44. Peterson is more than capable of playing well as a strong safety, and the defense could do the same things they do with Michael Boulware. He can hit and he can cover tight ends and running backs. The Seahawks also have D.D. Lewis sitting on the bench to fill the void left by removing Peterson from the linebacking corps. Leroy Hill would move over to the weakside to replace Peterson and Lewis would come in and play on the strongside, where he played very well last season as a starter.
With Babineaux being asked to play more safety, the team needs to keep another cornerback on the roster. Were something to happen to Ken Hamlin, then Babineaux would move into the starting line-up and no longer be available as the nickel corner. Kelly Jennings could fill that role, but the team still needs depth. That extra guy is probably Jimmy Williams. He may not have had much value as a 5th cornerback a few weeks ago, but with Mike Green done for the year, Williams can be a decent 4th cornerback if called upon.
Jimmy Williams is nothing special, but his value skyrockets without Mike Green around. The Seahawks let Williams start last season during the meaningless game against Green Bay, and he had 9 tackles and tallied an interception. He also had an interception when he played during the second half of the Monday Night blowout at Philadelphia. Williams also started 6 games for San Francisco in 2004.
To get an idea of how vulnerable the Seahawks are now that Green is no longer in the picture, we can do a little exercise by removing some of the starters. For the sake of illustration, let's lose CB Marcus Trufant, FS Ken Hamlin, and SS Michael Boulware. That's a lot of talent to be taking out of the equation. Under that extreme scenario, the team could use Kelly Herndon and Kelly Jennings as the starting cornerbacks, Babineaux at free safety, Peterson at strong safety, and Lofa Tatupu, Leroy Hill, and D.D. Lewis as the linebackers. That is far from ideal, but most teams could not field a back seven with that much talent if they lost three extremely good starters in the secondary. Jimmy Williams could come in and be the nickel corner in that scenario.
No other injury combination would be more extreme than that, unless you want to remove all of the starters in the secondary, and no team looks very good under those circumstances.
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