THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Will Clark's return be the trick for Seahawks?

Frank Clark?

Are we talking about THAT Frank Clark?

Apparently, the answer is yes.

Whatever other yeas and nays you can offer about this organization, you have to admit they believe in recycling.

Maybe they should save the oceans.

As for football, let me offer a timeline here.

So, we back up.

Anyone who heard the news on Tuesday that Seahawks edge linebacker Uchenna Nwosu was lost for the season knew immediately that the team would have to find a replacement.

Fans and media alike started to scan the rest of the league for a player who might work in Nwosu’s spot. 

In fact, on Wednesday morning, I wrote a column to run today.

The facts laid out seemed to make sense.

Here’s how the column started, with a few minor edits.

Halloween is next Tuesday.

This year, it means more to the Seahawks than funny costumes and candy for the kids.

The NFL trade deadline pops at 1 p.m. that day.

Other things are a different this season, too.

Look, GM John Schneider is always on the phone, consistently looking for help at various positions.

But now, he has a sudden, specific need and very little time to fill it.

Outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu suffered a pectoral muscle injury in the game last Sunday against Arizona.

Nwosu has been a key member of Seattle’s rapidly improving defense, a group that has allowed just 30 points in the past three games.

Seattle (4-2) has crept up to just a half-game behind the 49ers (5-2) in the NFC West.

Schneider may have had deals to shore up other spots in mind a week ago (and still might), but now he’s almost surely in the market for someone to cover the loss of Nwosu.

AH, BUT Schneider wasn’t in the market most of us suspected.

Never mind any of the experienced, talented guys who were playing well elsewhere in the same 3-4 scheme that Seattle adopted last year — and which has become hugely successful.

Like many others who cover the Seahawks, I started looking at the health and productivity of pending free agents like Danielle Hunter in Minnesota (nine sacks to lead the NFL), Brian Burns at Carolina, and the two available impact players in Washington, Montez Sweat and Chase Young.

They each had different qualities (and potential price tags), and it seemed logical that the Seahawks would be thinking of someone they might want to keep beyond this season.

After all, another one of their current four edge linebackers, Darrell Taylor, is unsigned past this year.

Nwosu does have a multi-year contract, and even if he needs surgery, the sturdiest run defender of the rotating edge guys (Nwosu, Taylor, Boye Mafe and rookie Derick Hall) is expected to be back and fit for 2024.

While most of us believed Carroll and Schneider would hit the market before the Halloween deadline, they actually were shopping at a thrift store.

They brought home Frank Clark.

YES, IT’S a fact that the Seahawks have had success recycling former players.

Carroll believes passionately that the organization’s unique culture brings the best out of everyone.

Bobby Wagner and Jarran Reed are a couple of prodigal sons playing exceptionally right now for that exciting young defense.

Hey, this is a team that managed to get Marshawn Lynch off his couch to play a couple games of Beast Mode at the end of the 2019 season.

Carroll is really pushing the envelope, though, in bringing back Clark.

This comes at a critical time, too, because these Seahawks are looking more and more like a gang that can progress about as far as the defense can carry them.

Clark?

Yes, he was a Pro Bowler in Kansas City, and won two Super Bowls while working on a four-year, $105 million deal.

Yet the Chiefs felt that Clark’s game has fallen off to the point they simply released him after last season.

Clark signed a one-year deal with Denver, but played only two games.

He was inactive for three more, then released on Oct. 14 after the Broncos couldn’t find anyone to take him in a trade.

That’s an interesting date, because it tells you that every team in the NFL had more than 10 days to grab Clark – yet no one did.

Now he’s back, coming to play in a new defense (Clark has always been an end in 4-3 schemes), with the whole league basically betting that he has nothing left.

Can Pete produce his magic again?

If not, this will be a spooky Halloween.

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”