Nice move

I'm not a Kelly Jennings hater. Slim never fulfilled his potential as a first-round pick, but he worked hard and played hard and did his best. He was a standup guy playing one of the toughest positions in the game. The most thankless aspect of playing DB is that people notice when you get burned, but they don't notice when your coverage is so good that the quarterback opts not to throw your way. Jennings was much better than his detractors believed.

That said, the secondary had emerged as a strength over the last two years, stocked with hungry young talent. While trading Josh Wilson last year remains an obvious mistake, dealing Slim now was probably the right move.

The only thing more disturbing than Seattle's inability to protect T-Jack in passing situations was our defense's inability to pressure Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton, who spent most of the game standing serenely in a vast, verdant clearing, waiting nonchalantly for a receiver to get open downfield. Denver could have inserted a department store mannequin as their signal-caller, and our D-Line still would have struggled to record a sack.

Marcus Trufant did sack Orton on a memorable corner blitz. Unfortunately, he has pass coverage responsibilities most of the time. We need our defensive linemen and linebackers to exert consistent pressure.

For that reason, the pickup of Bengals defensive tackle Clinton McDonald makes sense. Young McDonald is an intriguing prospect, a practice squad project who saw spot duty last year in Cincy. One hopes that it wasn't a simple trade, that we might have gained some draft picks in the bargain, because trading a starting cornerback for a backup D-lineman doesn't seem  fair.

But the subtraction of Jennings shouldn't hurt, and the addition of McDonald could help.