You believed.
With a four-time defending division champion, a legendary coach entering his final year and a defense on the verge of breaking through, Seattle and its surrounding cities had reason to enter the 2008 NFL season with high expectations.
When national pundits began picking the Seahawks as the likely NFC West champion and a legitimate Super Bowl contender, the optimism in these parts was unbridled.
Six weeks into the regular season, it has all come crashing down.
Even the believers have started reaching for the stop cord on the bus known as the Seahawks bandwagon. A 1-4 start and two-and-a-half-game deficit in the division have already led the city to start lumping the Seahawks’ season in with other disasters like those that befell the Sonics, Mariners and Washington Huskies.
The reasons for the unexpected fall are as plain as they are complex.
The injuries at wide receiver, where Seattle has used nine different starters this season, has inarguably hamstrung an offense that relies on its passing game. The fact that quarterback Matt Hasselbeck’s bad back kept him out of most of training camp, not to mention Sunday’s loss to Green Bay, is also a big reason why Seattle’s offense ranks 27th in the league through six weeks.
But the 27th-ranked defense has been a perplexing conundrum for coaches and fans alike. While, in hindsight, people could have seen it coming — the unit struggled on the road last season and had a complete meltdown in two of the final three games — the inability of Seattle’s defense to stop opposing teams has been the unexpected variable that has made the first six weeks so unbearable for fans to watch.
The players point toward a maddening habit of teammates trying to do too much to make up for the struggles. Seahawks defenders are out of position, missing their gaps or playing too aggressive.
Seattle’s veteran safety duo of Deon Grant and Brian Russell has been exposed at times, which may have to do with a slight shift in philosophy. Russell and defensive backs coach Jim Mora said during training camp that the safeties would try to be more aggressive this season, and thus far the plan has brought painful results.
Aggressiveness has also hurt Seattle’s pass defense in terms of rushing the quarterback at times. The most obvious example came in Sunday’s loss to Green Bay, when Seattle sent three blitzers after the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers in addition to the four linemen up front. Rodgers was able to withstand the pressure and connect on a 45-yard touchdown pass to Greg Jennings.
Pass pressure has been a problem for most of the season as the team tries to come up with a complimentary plan to go with oft-double-teamed left end Patrick Kerney. Rookie first-round pick Lawrence Jackson won the starting job on the other side but has not been consistent in terms of his pass rush. (Jackson’s two sacks came against San Francisco, when the 49ers’ J.T. O’Sullivan was trying to scramble in the pocket.)
The overall result has been one of the worst starts to a season by any defense in team history. The 151 points allowed is the highest five-game total to start a Seahawks season since the inaugural year in 1976, when Seattle allowed 156.
This despite having four Pro Bowlers on the defense.
Even special teams has been a problem at times, with three key plays in the season opener leading to a 34-10 loss at Buffalo. Punter Ryan Plackemeier struggled so badly that he was cut.
The Seahawks, desperate to replace injured players and under-performing youngsters, have added 11 players to the active roster since the end of training camp.
None of the changes have helped the team’s fortunes, as the 1-4 Seahawks are off to their worst start since 2002.
“I’m acknowledging the fact that we’re in a tough spot,” head coach Mike Holmgren said on Monday. “I mean, we’re in a tough spot. It’s kind of like, I don’t know where to go. If I could go out and pluck a Jerry Rice off the street and plug him in, we’d try and do that.
“But that’s not (an option).”
The Seahawks are dangerously close to running out of options. With back-to-back road games, followed by a home date with the Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle could fall into even further depths in the coming weeks.
Holmgren, for all his team’s misfortune and the city’s near-panic, has faith that things haven’t spiraled out of control.
“I just think, for whatever reason, we haven’t played our best game,” he said this week. “… I’m kind of an optimist, anyway, at heart.”
After the Seahawks’ unexpected start, optimists are becoming a dying breed in this part of the state.
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