Dave 'Softy' Mahler and Dick Fain

We won't spend too much time talking about the M's because the season is essentially over. It's possible that they won't even make it to .500. There's a reason this franchise hasn't made the playoffs in 17 years; the team doesn't develop truly great talent. The last great hitter to come up through the system was Alex Rodriguez, and he didn't need all that much development. For the last few years, the definition of success for the Seahawks has been a Super Bowl victory. Anything less has been a disappointment. In 2018, expectations are a little lower. So what's the definition of success this year? Softy says it's developing players that can be re-signed. Paramount Sports' Lee Sterling has your picks for this weekend's college football and NFL games.

It's Dick Fain's pick on today's Fact or Fiction, and he's taking Boise State. Mike Holmgren joins us from the Central Bar and Restaurant in Bellevue. He gives us his takeaways following the season opener in Denver, evaluates Russell Wilson's performance, explains how he'd handle the force that is Khalil Mack, and gives us his game plan for the Chicago game on Monday night. Softy chats with Chris Petersen ahead of the Utah game this Saturday. Congratulations to the Seattle Storm on their third WNBA championship. If there was ever any question before, Sue Bird now for sure deserves a place on the Mt. Rushmore of Seattle sports.

Questions continue to swirl around Jake Browning, his recent performance, and his knee injury. Short of a serious injury, what would it take to give Jake Haener the start in Saturday's game against Utah? Let's be real, it's not going to happen. How concerned should we be with Browning? Where do you fall on the Browning Confidence Index? The Mariners are pretty much done after losing to the Padres. Did the team re-sign it's GM and manager too quickly this year. Dipoto's biggest mistake was not picking up a starting pitcher at the deadline. Even a mediocre starting pitcher would have been helpful.

Today's Fact or Fiction pick: Nortre Dame minus the points. The Hawks are going to have a tough time against Khalil Mack and the Bears' front seven. The best thing they can do is just run right at them. Chris Carson has proved he deserves to be the dominant running back, at least until Rashaad Penny actually shows us something. Petros Papadakis had an interesting theory about why the Seahawks have been in decline. We discuss that, last weekend's Pac-12 action, and a look ahead to this weekend's Husky game against Utah. Textimonials evaluate their confidence in Jake Browning.

Rick Neuhsisel joins the show to talk about everything happening in college football. How concerned should we be about Jake Browning? How will the Dawgs match up against Utah? Can we count on Auburn to run over LSU to help out the Dawgs in the Battle of the Tigers? Kevin Harlan will call the Seahawks/Bears game on Monday. He looks ahead to how the Hawks will perform. Dick was right. Diaz shouldn't be used in non-save situations. He has a 6.97 ERA when pitching in non-saves vs. an ERA of less than 2 in save situations. You can't obviously always restrict him to only save situations, but you've got to as much as possible. The numbers are clear. Softy sits down with Jake Haener after playing his first game for UW on Saturday.

Hugh Millen and Dick Baird join Softy every Tuesday at 3:00pm on KJR for the Husky Honks. This week, we break down the team's performance in the 45-3 win against North Dakota. Jake Haener showed up in this game and looked great. With the way Browning's been playing, some fans are starting to ask the question, so is there a quarterback controversy? What's up with Jake Browning anyway? And we've talked about this seemingly every year for the past couple seasons but, what's wrong with the Husky run game? We look forward to the Utah game; now that we've discussed everything wrong with the team, what are they doing right that's going to win this game in Salt Lake?

It's time for Fact or Fiction, and it's Dick Fain's first pick of the week. He's got confidence that the Vikings can beat the spread. Doug Baldwin's out with an MCL issue and is going to miss a couple of weeks at least. Our options at wide receiver just dropped substantially. Is Brandon Marshall the best option in that position right now? Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News takes a look around the Pac-12. He tells Dawg fans what DEFCON level they should be at after a couple shaky weeks of QB play. Textimonials share their confidence in Jake Browning, and is there any shot the Hawks win the NFC West?

Some fans are questioning Jermain Ifedi's play in the game on Sunday. Walter Jones shares his thoughts and takes a look at the Hawks' overall performance as they head toward week 2 in Chicago. Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk takes us around the league after the first weekend of NFL football. Pete Carroll talks to the media about next week's game in Chicago, including the latest on Doug Baldwin. Time is running out for the M's. They'll try to pick up a win against the Padres. We'll set the lineups and hear from Scott Servais on Baseball's Heritage Pre-Game Show. Tod Leiweke and David Wright, Vice Chairman of Seattle Hockey Partners, discuss the importance of local ownership on Tuesdays with Tod.

The good news is the NFL season is finally underway. The bad news of course, is that the Hawks lost the opening game in Denver. There's plenty of blame to go around, but it's hard to ignore Russell Wilson's disappointing performance yesterday. Maybe it's just because he's been so consistently good and we just expect too much of him, but he definitely seemed to have some problems. The problems go beyond quarterback though. The Hawks clearly have a talent problem. We give listeners the chance to vent after the loss. Mike Holmgren provides expert analysis on the first game of the year, and tells us if we're off base about criticizing Wilson.

We announce last week's Fact or Fiction winner, and make our pick for the Rams / Raiders game. We spent the first hour crushing the Hawks for all of their mistakes, but there were a lot of positives in yesterday's game too. Michael Dickson and Will Dissly are examples. Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt breaks down the Washington vs North Dakota game, Jake Browning's performance, and why he hates backup quarterbacks in his weekly look at Pac-12 football. Textimonials today assign slices of the Seahawks blame pie.