Hawks say goodbye to Harvin

• The stunning news Friday afternoon: playmaker Percy Harvin (pictured), the guy who was supposed to inject excitement into the Seattle franchise, was out the door . Booted off to the New York Jets , the Siberia of the modern-day NFL, for a lowly mid-range draft pick. So much for excitement. In hindsight, though, I guess he did supply it. It just was fleeting. As in his kickoff return in the Super Bowl. And that fly sweep early in the game. And his touchdown run in San Diego a few weeks back. And, lest we forget, yesterday when the Hawks ran him out of town , his head on a pike. Talk about exciting. All we heard while Harvin was in a Seattle uniform – mainly a red, no-contact one at practice – was how his problems were behind him, a thing of his Florida and Minnesota past. Pete Carroll’s Fr. Flanigan act had worked once more and Harvin was born again, a teammate who wanted nothing more to be on the field to help his team win. A saint. The old-school variety, not the New Orleans type. Until he wasn’t. The trade isn’t even official and the character assassination of Harvin has already reached the Soviet-era non-person level. I’m not saying it’s not all true, the punch reportedly delivered to Golden Tate before the Super Bowl, the argument that alleged to have occurred with Russell Wilson this season, the purported nastiness in the wide receivers meeting room. Taking Harvin’s track record into account, it’s more than likely all gospel. But where were the stories a month ago? A week ago? How come the leaks didn’t spew forth this stuff until after he was traded? Could it be Carroll and general manager John Schneider are now covering their butts, considering their investment in Harvin, both in money and reputation? Sure it is. By trading Harvin yesterday, the Seahawks’ brain trust admitted they had made a mistake, that even Carroll, Mr. Fix-It, couldn’t paper over Harvin’s problems anymore. Hence the leaks. But it just wasn’t the off-field stuff that sealed Harvin’s fate. You think if he was catching 8-to-10 passes a game for more than 100 yards, taking a fly sweep upfield for 20 yards occasionally and was returning a kickoff to the house here and there, it would matter what type of guy he was? How about if he was doing all that and the Hawks were 5-0? Then the bad-guy Percy would still be whispered about, a mess that needed to be swept under the rug to keep the machine rolling. But he wasn’t and the Hawks aren’t 5-0. They are 3-2 headed into the house of horrors – at least physically – that is the Edward H. Jones Dome or whatever they call that place in St. Louis these days. So Harvin and his anger-management issues, his inability to play nice with his fellow receivers and his disagreements with the franchise’s face, the truly sainted (as far as we know) Russell Wilson, are gone. The only thing left is the egg on Carroll and Schneider’s face.

• One last thing. If Harvin really is a big old jerk, then Carroll and Schneider deserve credit for admitting a mistake. For eating the money and cap hit. For moving on. But that’s balanced by the hubris they displayed in figuring they could reform Harvin and make him fit in the locker room. From the leaks that emerged yesterday, that wasn’t ever possible. The Hawks weighed his talents – considerable – with his problems – also, we know now, considerable – and made two decisions. The first was to trade for him. The second was to trade him away. In hindsight, only one of those moves could be a right one.

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• WSU: This is the first of two weeks this fall the Cougars don’t play. But don’t fear. Jacob Thorpe has his morning post with links. … We’re sorry to say we didn’t see a mailbag on ESPN.com’s Pac-12 blog. But it had a viewer’s guide to today’s games, a look back at its preseason predictions and the conference’s most recent officiating inconsistency.

• EWU: With Northern Colorado invading a sold-out Roos Field today, Jim Allen takes a look at Eastern’s one side of the ball that really wants to improve: the defense.

• Chiefs: No one has been able to defeat the Kelowna Rockets after 10 games in this WHL season. Not even the Chiefs, who came close last night at the Arena but finally fell, 3-2. Chris Derrick has the story and a blog post on Kelowna’s hot start. … Tri-City got past Everett in a shootout. … Portland opened a long road trip with a win.

• Preps: The Lake City/Coeur d’Alene matchup last night was quite possibly the most hyped game of the prep season. And it delivered. Greg Lee was at C’dA as the Timberwolves took a thrilling 45-42 overtime victory (pictured). … Gonzaga Prep rolled over visiting Central Valley 49-24. Tom Clouse has the story and Jesse Tinsley the photographs . … Ferris rallied past Mead, 16-7. … Mt. Spokane took care of North Central, 33-7. … Lewis and Clark held off University, 42-28. … West Valley traveled to Cheney and picked up a 17-14 win. … We also have a roundup of other football action as well as another roundup covering other sports.

• Seahawks: How often can you remember a Saturday when the Hawks played Sunday and there is nothing to pass on concerning the game itself? Me neither. But that’s the case today as it’s all Harvin all the time . From columns to stories about the problems to pieces on who has to take up the slack , about all I could find in the Puget Sound papers were stories on the trade. And national folks weighed in as well, including a New York writer who is wondering what the Jets are thinking .

• Mariners: One of the usual exercises of the offseason is to rank each team’s minor league stars .

• Sounders: The two Sounders who played for the national team returned to Seattle yesterday and one, DeAndre Yedlin, answered questions about the MLS commissioner’s comments criticizing national coach Jurgen Klinsmann. Clint Dempsey was under the weather and didn’t talk, though he did work out. But Sigi Schmid did talk . … When the Sounders open the playoffs , they will play at 7:30 on Nov. 10.

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• It’s sure easy to get rusty. It’s been a while since I covered a high school football game and the rust really showed last night. Not only did I struggle to get up the steps at Albi – it seemed as if I was carrying a telephone pole on my back like the dude in “Vision Quest” – but I had a couple of small missteps in my story, like repeating a player’s first name twice and failing to mention a drive started in one quarter and finished in another. Now that I’ve come clean, I feel better. Let’s hope I never get arrested for anything because I’m pretty sure I will confess whether I did it or not. Until later …