There's sort of a bizzare parallel universe thing going on with the St. Louis Rams and Seattle Seahawks, and yesterday's news that Tim Ruskell resigned as president and GM had a strange echo of Jay Zygmunt.
Though you wouldn't have know it from the game last week, Seattle has some big signs of a team in decline. They're hanging onto an aging offensive core that once led the team to glory. Now, those same players are mostly broken shells of their former selves. It's not unlike what we've seen in St. Louis with Marc Bulger and the demise of the Greatest Show on Turf.
Reading over the blogs, Seattle fans seem to be just as pleased with Ruskell's 86'ing as Rams fans were when Jay Zygmunt was asked to pack up his office. And the comparisons don't stop there. You've got the curious, to be generous, player moves that Seattle made, Steve Hutchinson for example, and personnel highlights such as the rift with Holmgren. Still, Zygmunt had him beat on bad drafts. Nobody beats the Rams when it comes to bad drafts through the last decade.
The Rams started turning the corner after last season. Though you wouldn't know it looking at the record or reading the local daily, the Rams generally do seem to be heading in the right direction. Still, the Rams have a big hole to climb out of because a bad situation was left to fester for too long. At least (or unfortunately) Seattle made the right move before things got really out of control. Seattle has two first round picks in the coming draft, one that figures to be deep with talent. For them, catching up should be a much easier road than the Rams are traveling.