Should Seahawks Fans Be Relieved?
....after the cardiac arrythmia-inducing nail-biter 30-28 victory over the St. Louis Rams Sunday?
Until the last two minutes I would have said yes. Well, maybe not even then, but I'd have felt a lot better about things. As it is, the answer is still no.
1) Seattle's running game is now all the way up to mediocre. I say that because after a first half in which Mo Morris rushed for four yards on five carries, the 'hawks managed to salvage a hundred-plus yard rushing day, with Morris accounting for a total of seventy-four of them.
What this proves is that Seattle CAN rush the ball at least adequately without Shaun Alexander. I'm not convinced that they will, or that they can do it consistently.
2) The offensive line still sucks. Matt Hasselbeck got sacked four more times against the Rams. It probably would have been twice that if Coach Mike Holmgren hadn't forced his offense to run the ball in the second half. That's a trend that has to continue, or Hasselbeck will be in a wheelchair by Halloween.
3) The defense was a sieve in the first half, and a brick wall for all of the second half except the play that actually mattered, namely Torrie Holt's 67-yard touchdown reception that gave the Rams a brief one-point lead with two minutes to go.
4) The five-quarter skid of being outscored 64-6 extended to seven quarters and 85-13 before Holmgren had had enough and tore into his squad with a profanity-laced tirade at halftime. In this he provided a catharsis for the entire Seahawk nation. And it worked, at least for a while, as a 21-7 Ram halftime lead was answered with twenty straight Seattle points over the next twenty or so minutes.
After middle linebacker Lofa Tatupu picked off a Marc Bolger pass at the three-minute mark and returned it to the Ram 18, that should have been it. Just run three dives into the middle of the line, kick a chip-shot field goal, ice the game, and go home with a solid, momentum-building 30-21 win that re-establishes Seattle as the top dog of the NFC West.
But noooooo. Mo Morris fumbled at the five yard line. Bolger hit the sixty-seven yard bomb to Holt. Game, set, match. And season, for all intents and purposes, over.
Except that Matt Hasselbeck still had a minute and forty-four seconds on the clock, and Josh Brown has a bionic leg, and for once the zebras didn't bugger the 'hawks bloody on the illegal formation call on which Rams coach Scott Linehan was jumping for joy believing that that would run out the clock. One fifty-four yard chip shot later, Seattle escaped the guillotine.
So the defending NFC champs are 4-1, back in first, and are looking at a remaining schedule that should enable them to match last year's 13-3 record. Only the Denver and San Diego games look like sure losses; the rest of the lineup look like proverbial tomato cans.
Yet I can't get excited about it. Sunday's win seems less like a victory and more like a gift. I guess I'm not buying the spin about heart-stoppers somehow "meaning more" than blowouts. Ask the big, bad Chicago Bears if they'd rather have squashed the Cardinals 123-0 last night instead of barely scraping by by a single point. Yeah, maybe it "builds character," but I'm from the old school that believes such character should come simply from being a professional football player. "Victories" in which you almost get upset by a vastly inferior foe, or try to give the game away after having seized it, are "W"s only in the most technical sense, and of value only in that they aren't "L"s.
At any rate, even if the Seahawks do muster the effort to win the games they should the remainder of the way and post another 13-3 mark, they'll still be looking up at the 15-1 Bears, whose home stadium of Soldier Field will be this year's road to Super Bowl XLI.
The 'hawks could sure use a four-quarter ass-kicking of the Vikings at Qwest Field next Sunday. Until they put it all together for an entire game, I will remain a staunch skeptic.
Until the last two minutes I would have said yes. Well, maybe not even then, but I'd have felt a lot better about things. As it is, the answer is still no.
1) Seattle's running game is now all the way up to mediocre. I say that because after a first half in which Mo Morris rushed for four yards on five carries, the 'hawks managed to salvage a hundred-plus yard rushing day, with Morris accounting for a total of seventy-four of them.
What this proves is that Seattle CAN rush the ball at least adequately without Shaun Alexander. I'm not convinced that they will, or that they can do it consistently.
2) The offensive line still sucks. Matt Hasselbeck got sacked four more times against the Rams. It probably would have been twice that if Coach Mike Holmgren hadn't forced his offense to run the ball in the second half. That's a trend that has to continue, or Hasselbeck will be in a wheelchair by Halloween.
3) The defense was a sieve in the first half, and a brick wall for all of the second half except the play that actually mattered, namely Torrie Holt's 67-yard touchdown reception that gave the Rams a brief one-point lead with two minutes to go.
4) The five-quarter skid of being outscored 64-6 extended to seven quarters and 85-13 before Holmgren had had enough and tore into his squad with a profanity-laced tirade at halftime. In this he provided a catharsis for the entire Seahawk nation. And it worked, at least for a while, as a 21-7 Ram halftime lead was answered with twenty straight Seattle points over the next twenty or so minutes.
After middle linebacker Lofa Tatupu picked off a Marc Bolger pass at the three-minute mark and returned it to the Ram 18, that should have been it. Just run three dives into the middle of the line, kick a chip-shot field goal, ice the game, and go home with a solid, momentum-building 30-21 win that re-establishes Seattle as the top dog of the NFC West.
But noooooo. Mo Morris fumbled at the five yard line. Bolger hit the sixty-seven yard bomb to Holt. Game, set, match. And season, for all intents and purposes, over.
Except that Matt Hasselbeck still had a minute and forty-four seconds on the clock, and Josh Brown has a bionic leg, and for once the zebras didn't bugger the 'hawks bloody on the illegal formation call on which Rams coach Scott Linehan was jumping for joy believing that that would run out the clock. One fifty-four yard chip shot later, Seattle escaped the guillotine.
So the defending NFC champs are 4-1, back in first, and are looking at a remaining schedule that should enable them to match last year's 13-3 record. Only the Denver and San Diego games look like sure losses; the rest of the lineup look like proverbial tomato cans.
Yet I can't get excited about it. Sunday's win seems less like a victory and more like a gift. I guess I'm not buying the spin about heart-stoppers somehow "meaning more" than blowouts. Ask the big, bad Chicago Bears if they'd rather have squashed the Cardinals 123-0 last night instead of barely scraping by by a single point. Yeah, maybe it "builds character," but I'm from the old school that believes such character should come simply from being a professional football player. "Victories" in which you almost get upset by a vastly inferior foe, or try to give the game away after having seized it, are "W"s only in the most technical sense, and of value only in that they aren't "L"s.
At any rate, even if the Seahawks do muster the effort to win the games they should the remainder of the way and post another 13-3 mark, they'll still be looking up at the 15-1 Bears, whose home stadium of Soldier Field will be this year's road to Super Bowl XLI.
The 'hawks could sure use a four-quarter ass-kicking of the Vikings at Qwest Field next Sunday. Until they put it all together for an entire game, I will remain a staunch skeptic.
posted by JASmius at 1:19 PM
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