SEATTLE — Second chances are hard to come by as an NFL quarterback.
Third chances? Next to impossible, which is why Sunday’s game was pretty much an audition for the rest of Charlie Frye’s career.
Chances are, he won’t start again this season for the Seattle Seahawks as either Matt Hasselbeck or Seneca Wallace, or both, are likely to return from injuries next week.
But play well Sunday and he keeps himself on the league’s radar screen. At 27, he’s still young enough that somebody might give him a shot.
Wipe out again and it’s over. You’re a career backup, if you stick around at all.
No pressure.
“It was huge,” Frye said of how important Sunday’s game was for his career. “You’re graded by the things that you put on film, not the circumstances. I’m sure everybody’s looking at it.
“I was the guy starting today, so I’m responsible for what I put on that film,” he said. “It was pretty big for me to go out there and do some things well.”
Frye did some things well, but not nearly enough to keep the Seahawks from losing to Green Bay 27-17 at Qwest Field.
He completed 12 of 23 passes for 83 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. He was sacked three times but also had a 27-yard scramble in the fourth quarter.
It was understood both before and after the game that it wasn’t about Frye. Seattle (1-4) would need a solid running game and a stout defense to beat Green Bay (3-3) in any case.
When neither of those materialized — Seattle’s running backs had only 83 yards on 21 carries, and the defense gave up 313 yards and allowed the Packers to convert on 10 of 18 third-down situations — it was almost a moot point who was at quarterback, and it was not a hot topic in the locker room.
“He played OK. I think he did OK,” Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said of Frye, almost dismissively, much more inclined to talk about the team’s deeper, more lasting problems.
Frye echoed Holmgren’s assessment of his performance.
“I thought it was average. I did some good things, but I did some bad things. They kind of equaled themselves out as an average grade,” Frye said.
“I can play a lot better, I know that,” he said.
Working with a poor running game and dreadful field position for most of the game, and playing from behind throughout the second half, Frye was up against it. Both of his interceptions came in the fourth quarter with the Packers leading by two touchdowns or more.
“Charlie went out there and played his (butt) off under some tough circumstances,” Seahawks guard Mike Wahle said. “The way he finished that game, we can work with that.”
Frye’s best drive was his last, when he led the Seahawks 72 yards in nine plays. That drive included the 27-yard scramble, and Frye capped it with a 5-yard touchdown pass to Keary Colbert that made the score 27-17 with 3:14 left.
The Packers recovered the ensuing onside kick and ran out the clock from there.
At least Frye was around at the finish.
In his last start, playing for Cleveland in the 2007 season opener, he played so poorly that he was pulled in the second quarter and traded two days later to Seattle, which was shopping for a third-string quarterback.
It was the only time since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970 that a quarterback was traded during a season in which he started his team’s season opener.
He has been Seattle’s third-stringer since then, and Sunday’s game was his first regular-season action as a Seahawk.
One of the few smiles seen in the Seahawks locker room came when Frye was asked whether it felt good to get back on the field.
“I love playing this game,” he said. “Obviously, you want to go out there and win, but you can’t win them all.”
With Sunday’s loss, Frye is 6-14 as a starting quarterback, with 13 of his starts coming with Cleveland in 2006. As with Sunday’s result, that record has more to do with the rest of the team than with Frye, originally a third-round draft pick out of Akron, and he remains upbeat about his long-term prospects.
“I have never really struggled in confidence. I’m pretty confident in my abilities, but that is only part of it. You still have to go out there and execute,” he said.
“That’s the thing I told myself when I came in the game, to be disciplined and go through the reads, because when you don’t get to run the offense on a regular basis, you sort of lose sight of that stuff,” Frye said.
Altogether, Frye’s game Sunday was neither a flop nor a flourish, probably good enough to win with a little more support, not good enough to lift his team above its other problems.
Whether it keeps his career alive to any extent, well, that remains to be seen.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
