Gulls this week to get an fan’s inside look at this weekend’s match up. The Seattle Seahawks and the Carolina Panthers will play for the eighth time in Russell Wilson and Cam Newton’s careers. That means you all know and hate the Seahawks about as much as you do the Saints Youth Cam Newton Jersey , I’m assuming. Check out what Kenneth had to say about the rivalry, the pass rush, the new Legion of Boom, and more below.Cat Scratch Reader: The Panthers and the Seahawks have started a small rivalry during the careers of Cam Newton and Russell Wilson. Why do you think Seattle has gotten the better of that rivalry (5-2) so far?Field Gulls: Hmmm, that’s a really good question. I think one factor is that the Seahawks have never posted a losing season with Wilson (2012-2017), whereas Carolina did post losing records in 2012, 2014, and 2016, so in those seasons the Panthers were not as strong overall and Seattle added a win against Carolina in all three of those years. In the other years: the 2013 Seahawks were one of the best defenses of all-time and beat the Panthers 12-7 in Week 1, so it was a hard fought game between two great NFC teams, and in the 2014 playoffs, Seattle was at home in the divisional round and on their way to a second straight Super Bowl. In 2015, the Panthers were clearly a better team and won accordingly in both the regular season and the playoffs. I think in those even-numbered years, Carolina’s defense just wasn’t nearly as strong as it had been in the odd-numbered years and the Seahawks were able to get some head-to-head victories racked up as the two teams strangely kept meeting year-after-year. They’re built in a lot of the same ways (Newton/Wilson, Kuechly/Wagner, power run games) but perhaps Seattle just had better injury luck with some of their star defensive players like Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, and Kam Chancellor ... up until recently at least.CSR: Can you keep a secret? The Panthers have surrendered eight sacks in the last two games. The Seahawks best pass rusher or a clever blitz is almost guaranteed to get home on Cam Newton on third downs. Who is going to be lined up across from the Panthers left tackle and how has his season been?FG: Frank Clark is playing on another level for Frank Clark right now, probably because he smells a $90 million contract coming for Christmas. The 25-year-old defensive end has 10 sacks in 10 games and he’s eyeing the franchise record (16.5) with six games to go. Clark is a free agent after the season and I can’t see a universe where the team doesn’t lock him up or at least apply the franchise tag if things get difficult in negotiations. Clark was a little inconsistent as a pass rusher in his first three years, but he was also sitting behind Cliff Avril for 2.25 of those years and is just now working on his second year as a starter. He’s got incredible power and moves to sometimes do whatever he wants on a play, and he’s had a good track record of even getting the better of Andrew Whitworth of the LA Rams. Clark has seven sacks in his last five games.The bad news is that there isn’t really another edge rusher on the team worth talking about. Quinton Jefferson is ... fine? He has 1.5 sacks and 11 QB hits but only two QB hits in the last four games. Dion Jordan looked really good in limited action last season but I always forget he’s on the team until questions like this come up. I can’t see the Seahawks re-signing him unless he shows up soon. Bark Mingo still isn’t a pass rusher. Rookie Rasheem Green (third round) had his first career sack last week, so maybe he’ll experience some growth soon? Branden Jackson flashes potential but not very often. The only other pass rusher worth talking about is defensive tackle Jarran Reed, who has 5.5 sacks and is Seattle’s best interior rusher since Clinton McDonald in 2013. He’s a really good defensive tackle and I could see him joining the top or second tier of interior tackles, and him next to Clark is exciting, but the number one priority in 2019 will definitely be to add defensive line help.CSR: The Seahawks are down Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas from the heyday of the Legion of Boom. The Panthers have one of the fastest groups of play makers in the NFL in Christian McCaffrey http://www.authenticscarolinapanthers.com/cheap-mike-adams-jersey , DJ Moore, and Curtis Samuel. Norv Turner probably, or at least hopefully won’t forget about them this week. How fast and how disciplined are the new guys in Seattle’s secondary?FG: ”Speed” definitely isn’t what I think of when I think of the new guys in the secondary, but there are some good players in there, as well as some weaknesses. Don’t get me wrong, the new L.O.B. is not the old L.O.B. and it shows. Shaquill Griffin is the de facto number one cornerback and he’s usually good enough to hold his own and not get burned, but he’s not elite like Sherman or close to it. Sherman is a Hall of Famer in my opinion, so that’s not even a fair comparison for anyone. Griffin is more like a very solid corner but you can get after him a little bit. Across from him is rookie Tre Flowers, a fifth round pick who played safety at Oklahoma State. It’s amazing that Flowers is already starting and actually playing quite well. If anyone has Sherman potential on this team, it’s probably Flowers, but that’s likely a ways away. As for now, he can still go face to face with a lot of good receivers and not get torched, which is highly encouraging. I’d say Moore vs Flowers is a really intriguing matchup. I just remembered when Kelvin Benjamin caught a long bomb over Thomas and Sherman. Damn, remember that? That was tough.Tedric Thompson is the new free safety and maybe we are hard on him because he’s not ET and the pass defense is suffering for it. Believe it or not, Thomas has missed six of 10 games this season and still leads the team in interceptions. The Seahawks haven’t forced a turnover in any of their last three games and haven’t been close to it. Thompson was considered a ballhawk at Colorado, but that’s not happening in Seattle. He’s fine, maybe even good enough to be a long-term starter in the league, but the Seahawks miss Thomas. Bradley McDougald is the strong safety and he’s very, very good but it’s clear he was playing a lot better alongside Thomas; McDougald had two interceptions in Week 1 and zero since, and five passes defensed in the first four games but only one since. Justin Coleman is the slot corner and he’s also very good. He’s the last player on the team to record a turnover.CSR: Marshawn Lynch left big shoes to fill in Seattle. It seems like Chris Carson and Rashaad Penny might be running backs, but they haven’t exactly proven it yet. This is the NFL where running backs are a dime a dozen and Arian Foster’s undrafted free agent story doesn’t sound far-fetched. Why have the Seahawks struggled to create a potent rushing attack when they have Wilson’s mobility as a natural advantage?FG: Oh, unless I’ve misread what you’re saying, I think I would have to disagree. The Seahawks are first in the league in rushing yards and that includes a little identity crisis in Weeks 1 and 2. Going back to Week 3, Seattle has almost 200 more rushing yards than the New Orleans Saints and 111 more rushing yards than the second-place Rams, who have played in one more game during that time. The Seahawks have rushed for 150+ yards in seven straight games; they’re only the second team in the last 30 years (the 2004 Falcons) to do that. One more and they’ll be the first team since 1985 to do it in eight straight games. The Seahawks have gotten back to rushing as their offensive identity mixed in with high-percentage Color Rush Shaq Thompson Jersey , efficient passing by Wilson. A large part of that is the three-headed monster of Carson, Penny, and Mike Davis.Carson is the leader of the group and that’s because he can do a little bit of everything. He’s a tough runner and per PFF, he’s among the NFL leaders in yards after contact. Carson is tough to bring down, a very good pass blocker, and Seattle’s usage of zone read (which is really just inside handoffs, over and over again from shotgun) has helped fuel them to this rushing success. When Carson needs a break or is injured (he’s missed two games), the team usually turns to Davis. Davis is averaging 4.67 YPC over the last seven games and that’s probably coming from a combination of speed and vision and the use of the zone read. He was a solid pickup off the market last year and has worked his way from the number six back to a really solid number two. Penny was of course the first round pick this year and he’s got the most talent of the three. He can be so exciting to watch as a runner. He’s tough to bring down (NCAA leader in broken tackles in 2017) and he’ll bounce around and off of defenders like a pinball. Check out this run. We expect to see a lot more of that in the future, with Penny and Carson likely becoming a true power-and-speed duo in 2019 and 2020, should they remain healthy. Offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer has decided to turn off Wilson’s own rushing attack for the most part, but even he scrambled for 92 yards two weeks ago. They want to run it like 60% of the time, with their three backs, using a lot of inside zone read handoffs, and mixing in passes to Tyler Lockett and Doug Baldwin when they can to try and catch the defense off-guard from having to keep their attention on Carson-Davis-Penny. The Seahawks are not the rushing team they were with Marshawn Lynch, not in terms of being a single-back team, but they are running so much better than they did in 2016 and 2017 when they really lost their way in a post-Lynch world. Oh, also because they parted ways with Jimmy Graham at tight end and went with blocking tight ends like your old friend Ed Dickson and Nick Vannett, then signing guards DJ Fluker and JR Sweezy to open holes on the ground.CSR: A recent seahawks.com article quoted Pete Carroll as saying he and Wilson “see eye-to-eye” on the team. Does Carroll ever get questioned about coaching at a disadvantage due to his stature? Has he ever considered moving to the press box so that he can see over his offensive linemen while calling the game?FG: Yeah, most people say that Pete Carroll is too short to be a coach in the NFL and I’ve definitely noticed that at times he’ll throw a challenge flag just because otherwise the refs won’t even be able to see him, but he’s managed to overcome it to be a successful head coach in the national football league. The worrisome part is that as he approaches his 200th birthday, Carroll is only likely to get smaller in the years ahead, but it’s also possible that the troll he took a scholarship away from at USC in 2005 will lift the curse. The NFL Players Association will, as a practical matter, be investigating the NFL Players Association.In response to Panthers safety Eric Reid‘s latest iteration of his allegation that the NFL has subjected him to not-random random PED testing, the NFLPA reportedly is “looking into” the situation http://www.authenticscarolinapanthers.com/cheap-jarius-wright-jersey , according to David Newton of ESPN.com.That may just be a way of placating Reid, who apparently believes that the NFL has exclusive authority and control over the selection of 10 players per week from each team that will be subjected to random PED testing, and that the NFL is skewing that process to have his number called repeatedly.“I know what I’m dealing with,” Reid said Wednesday, via Newton. “I have a collusion case against the NFL. This is something that doesn’t surprise me from them. It’s supposed to be random. It’s obviously not. I’m not surprised about it. Even though it seems crazy on the outside looking in, and it is, I’m not surprised.”But does Reid really know what he’s dealing with? As explained on Wednesday, the NFL and NFLPA have collectively bargained the PED testing procedure. Under that procedure, they have jointly hired, and they jointly pay, an Independent Administrator to operate the PED testing program. The administration of the PED testing program includes executing the random selection of players to be tested. And if there are any irregularities in that regard, there should be digital footprints, at a minimum.“I know I’ve done nothing wrong, so I’m not concerned that my drug tests will come back . . . that I’ll fail that test,” Reid said. “But the system is lying, much like what I’m protesting. It’s supposed to be a random system. I’ve been looking at math statistics trying to talk to people. I think it’s like a one percent chance that somebody gets tested this much. Statistically, big problem.”But what’s more likely, given the realities of the testing process? A statistical oddity or foul play? And if the NFL were somehow persuading the Independent Administrator to rig the system to target Reid, wouldn’t the Independent Administrator also be rigging the result to generate a false positive? Really, what does the NFL gain by surreptitiously engineering a non-random random PED testing process? The satisfaction of knowing Reid has to pee in a cup more often than he should? If Reid nevertheless believes he’s being unfairly targeted, he should quit huffing and puffing and commence the process of blowing someone’s house down. And anyone in the media who’s going to be writing or talking about this situation should take care when creating copy and crafting headlines and hot takes to make it more clear that, absent evidence that the entity jointly hired by the NFL and the NFLPA has rigged the random selection process, this hypothesis remains firmly in tin-foil hat territory.And if no evidence of shenanigans is found, that outcome should be trumpeted as loudly as Reid’s for now unfounded suspicions.