Fourth-quarter flameouts

KIRKLAND – People were ready to anoint him the next John Elway.

In just 28 professional starts, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck had engineered eight game-winning drives in fourth quarters or overtime. When the game was on the line, Hasselbeck was the perfect man for the part.

Captain Comeback, where have you gone?

Not since Josh Brown nailed a 37-yard field goal with three minutes left in an Oct. 12, 2003, game against the San Francisco 49ers, have the Seahawks rallied from a fourth-quarter deficit and gone on to win the game.

“Was that really the last time?” Hasselbeck asked when presented with the 23-month draught. “That would be a shame if that was the last time.

“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? It might be a good thing.”

In a sense, it is. The Seahawks have found themselves tied or leading at halftime in 23 of their past 34 games (68 percent), dating back to the beginning of the 2003 season. The bad news is that not all those resulted in victories.

While much of the attention has been on a defense that has failed to hold leads over the past year, the offense has also been unsuccessful when trailing in the fourth quarter of games. Since the 2003 win over San Francisco, the Seahawks have found themselves behind by eight points or less in the fourth quarter of seven different games, only to lose them all.

Hasselbeck, whose late-game heroics were notable because it took Elway 37 starts to engineer eight game-winning drives, has also struggled in the clutch. The Seahawks’ all-time leader with a career 84.0 quarterback rating, Hasselbeck has had a much-less-impressive rating of 68.2 in his past seven games where Seattle was within a touchdown in the fourth quarter.

On potential game-winning or game-tying drives, Hasselbeck has a paltry 19.6 rating (8 of 21 for 128 yards and three interceptions) and has been sacked three times.

So while a victory over Arizona this weekend would be sweet, a comeback win would be long overdue.

“I hadn’t thought about it, really,” Hasselbeck said of his recent lack of comeback victories. “I know that when we first got here (in 2001), we practiced the two-minute drill all the time. My last couple years, we’ve been practicing what’s called four-minute, where we’re up by three or four or seven, whatever, and we need to get three first downs to win the game. … I would hope that’s an indication of us being a better team.”

Hasselbeck currently ranks seventh in the NFL with a 93.3 quarterback rating, but his rating of 72.3 in the fourth quarter ranks 18th. By contrast, he has a rating of 101.6 in the first three quarters of games.

The most frustrating performance came in the season opener, when Seattle was within six points of Jacksonville in the fourth quarter but couldn’t pull off a comeback victory.

Quarterbacks coach Jim Zorn was quick to defend Hasselbeck, saying that the lack of fourth-quarter success this season has been a team-wide issue.

“But I think that’s a part of the offense getting geared up and sustaining,” Zorn said. “Remember, in the preseason, the starters play one quarter. And now we play four quarters. It’s hard to sustain that because the mentality has to change. We’re all there; it’s not only Matt.”

Last season, the Seahawks’ lone fourth-quarter victory came when Trent Dilfer started against the Miami Dolphins. The hero of that game was rookie safety Michael Boulware, who intercepted an A.J. Feeley pass and rambled 63 yards for the game-winning touchdown.

Hasselbeck had chances to win games at New England, Arizona and St. Louis and was also in position to beat Dallas on Monday Night Football – despite the insistence of Seattle’s defense to let the Cowboys come back in the end. While the New Orleans Saints’ Aaron Brooks and Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger tied for the league lead with five game-winning drives in the fourth quarter, Hasselbeck had none.

So while Seahawks fans would love to get a victory over an NFC West opponent Sunday, they might have to do it in the first three quarters.