SEATTLE – Without the benefit of any turnovers or second-half production, the Seattle Seahawks proved to be a pretty decent team through their first two games this season.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
And in the NFC West, being decent is enough to earn a home playoff game.
And then, in the span of 30 seconds on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the Seahawks showed a different dimension. With their first two second-half touchdowns of the season, sandwiched around the first forced turnover of 2005, Seattle breezed to a victory that was never in doubt.
The 37-12 win over Arizona showed a different Seahawks team – one that is capable of dominating its opponent.
“We’re definitely rolling right now,” tight end Jerramy Stevens said. “To come off a win like this and to keep this momentum rolling, that could take us a long ways.”
The game marked the Seahawks’ most lopsided victory since a 34-0 win over the San Francisco 49ers in Week 3 of last season.
The Seahawks (2-1) hope the similarities to 2004 end here. After that convincing victory one year ago today, things slowly unraveled until Seattle found itself with three consecutive losses and a 3-3 record.
With road dates at Washington and St. Louis over the next two weeks, another losing streak isn’t out of the question. But this year’s Seahawks hope the momentum of a blowout victory can carry them a little longer.
“If you look at our team over the last three years, we’ve started out 3-0,” said running back Shaun Alexander, who tied the franchise record with four rushing touchdowns Sunday. “So we don’t feel like we’re finished or anywhere close to where we need to be. We’ve put together some good games back-to-back here, (but) we still have a lot of work to do.”
Unlike the first two games of this season, Seattle’s success Sunday came in the second half. A narrow 10-9 halftime lead swelled to 24-9 over the first 3:39 of the third quarter, thanks in large part to the end of a maddening trend of post-halftime ineptitude.
The Seahawks opened Sunday’s second half with a seven-play, 80-yard drive that saw the first seven plays each gain at least 8 yards. Alexander’s 1-yard touchdown run gave Seattle a 17-9 lead with 11:51 remaining in the third quarter.
Alexander scored another 1-yard run 30 seconds later, made possible by Seattle’s first forced turnover of the season when Michael Boulware hit Arizona quarterback Josh McCown and caused a fumble.
Less than four minutes into the second half, Seattle found itself ahead by 15 points and free of the two-week long scoreless streak that plagued the Seahawks after halftime.
“I told you last week that I thought that eventually this season we would score in the second half of a game,” said Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren, whose team went without a second-half point over the first two games. “I was right on that one. … We needed that bang-bang something to happen like it did, when we got the turnovers and were able to score, because we hadn’t gotten those types of plays in the first two ballgames.”
Not that Sunday’s game was its own entity. The Seahawks benefited from plenty of familiar storylines, the most notable of which were another big game from Alexander (140 rushing yards, four touchdowns), another injury to the opposing quarterback (Arizona’s Kurt Warner, like Michael Vick the previous week, hobbled off the field with a pulled muscle) and another stellar performance from an emerging defense (266 yards and 12 points allowed).
The Seahawks piled up 447 yards of offense, more than half of which came on three touchdown drives that started at their own 20-yard line.
The defense, meanwhile, held its own for the third time in as many games. Seattle gave up just 91 yards in the second half, when the Seahawks outscored Arizona 27-3.
“It’s just a stepping stone for us,” defensive tackle Marcus Tubbs said. “As long as the defense keeps getting better and keeps growing, then the sky is the limit for us.”
As good as Sunday’s win felt, the Seahawks were trying not to get too excited. Although the Cardinals – a team many expected to win the NFC West – fell two games behind Seattle at 0-3, the division still has a three-way tie at the top.
“(Sunday’s win was) definitely important, but it’s still a long, long season,” said Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who celebrated his 30th birthday by passing for 242 yards Sunday. “We’re happy to get this win, but (the NFC West) is still wide open. It’s way early.”
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