‘Running scared’

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, December 26, 2004

SEATTLE – When Trent Dilfer began to run and time stood still for the Seattle Seahawks late Sunday afternoon …

* Shaun Alexander thought to himself, “Faster! Faster! If he could have my legs right now, I would give them to him.”

* Center Robbie Tobek screamed from behind, “Tuck the ball! Tuck the ball!”

* Coach Mike Holmgren witnessed “the longest 7-yard run I had seen in my life.”

* Dilfer called it “running scared.”

In a Seahawks season that has proved no lead is safe, Dilfer tucked away their victory over the Arizona Cardinals in the most unlikely way.

He ran for a first down.

The Cardinals had turned a 17-point deficit into a three-point difference late in the fourth quarter, and there was every indication they would get a last chance to get the football. They had no time outs left, but with 2:18 remaining and the Seahawks facing a third-and-6 from their own 24-yard-line, all the Cardinals needed was one more defensive stop and another short drive into field goal range.

Having seen a late-game collapse too many times this season, the Seahawks’ fans were edgy and so were the guys on the field.

Then Dilfer dropped back to pass. The Hawks flooded the right side of the field with receivers and blockers, but all he could see that was open was the left side of the field, so he made a break for the first-down stake.

“I’m not going to scramble very often, but hopefully when I do they count,” Dilfer said.

Cardinals cornerback Duane Starks closed fast on Dilfer, trying to strip the ball away from the Seattle quarterback at about the 21-yard line. Tobek screamed for Dilfer to protect the ball, and other Seahawks simply wished for the slow-developing play to speed up. Starks’ chop with his right arm not only failed to dislodge the ball, but the Arizona defensive back failed to make the tackle, allowing Dilfer to run free with no defenders to impede his progress.

Dilfer made a head-first dive for first-down yardage at the 30 – and barely made it.

“He crashed and burned right at the stake,” Holmgren said. “It was beautiful.”

It was their 11th first down of the game by rushing, but it allowed the Seahawks to run out the clock when the Cardinals weren’t able to stop it.

Dilfer started his second game this season in place of Matt Hasselbeck, who tested his injured right elbow with some pregame throws that made him realize he wasn’t ready.

“We basically set out with a test of certain throws that I needed to make,” said Hasselbeck, who believes he will be ready to play next Sunday against the Falcons. “I made some of them and failed some of them. Not that I can’t make the throw, it’s just that I couldn’t make it at a world-class level. I could have played a high school game today, but not one against this team. If I was a pitcher, I would have had no fastball. That’s the best way I can say it.”

The Seahawks’ first three drives weren’t exactly confidence-builders for Dilfer. They went three-and-out each time and Dilfer struggled to hit his receivers. He didn’t complete a pass until his sixth throw of the game, an 18-yarder to tight end Ryan Hannam on the last play of the first quarter.

Holmgren said he altered the play calling to give Dilfer a better chance at success.

“I wanted Trent to get some confidence, so I changed the type of throws we were calling,” Holmgren said. “It would have been really unfair of me to expect any more of him in a game like this after he hasn’t played a lot.”

Dilfer finished with 10 completions in 26 attempts for 128 yards, including a 53-yarder in the third quarter that led to a touchdown that gave the Seahawks a 17-7 lead.

He admittedly wasn’t pretty, but only the victory was important to Dilfer.

“To win games like this you can’t have turnovers,” he said. “I was trying hard for ball security. You know you give up glamour when you do that. When they bring pressure you either tuck it or sometimes you’ve got to take sacks.”

In fact, Dilfer was prepared to take a sack on the play that turned into his game-clinching first-down run. He recognized the Cardinals’ defense and knew his primary receiver, Bobby Engram, should have been open, but he held onto the ball because he couldn’t see Engram.

“It would have been better to be sacked and punt the ball away with a three-point lead than to throw a ball not knowing where the defenders were and not seeing my receiver,” Dilfer said. “You sacrifice glamour, you sacrifice stats, you sacrifice all that stuff. But at the end of the day, you get wins because of it.”