Holmgren’s hook fails to save Hawks from another loss

By Scott M. Johnson

Herald Writer

LANDOVER, Md. – What happened during the first half of Sunday’s Seattle Seahawks game left even the head coach scratching his head. Mike Holmgren couldn’t figure out how this Seahawks team, with so much new veteran leadership, could come into a game without enough intensity.

What happened at halftime was even more baffling.

Holmgren, the No. 1 fan of Matt Hasselbeck ever since he dealt for him last February, finally took the ball out of his top quarterback’s hands. But even after turning to Trent Dilfer in the second half, the Seahawks couldn’t get anything going.

In the end, the Seahawks found themselves on the short end of a 27-14 game against the Washington Redskins, with a score that didn’t quite reflect how one-sided it was.

Turnovers, poor run defense, and an unreliable receiving corps all contributed to Seattle’s loss. But when things started to slip away in the first half, Holmgren made Hasselbeck his fall guy.

“Matt was struggling in the first half, in his decisions and stuff like that. His throws were a little bit off,” Holmgren said. “So I figured, what the heck? It was a close game at that point, and I gave Trent a chance to start in the second half.

“I really don’t want to go too much into the specifics of the quarterback and what he does on every play,” he added. “Just trust me. I’ve told you before that I would know if (Hasselbeck) wasn’t playing up to the standard that I want him to play, and he wasn’t. So we made the change. What we do next week, we’ll see.”

Holmgren’s hook came sooner than expected, especially considering the confidence he has shown in Hasslebeck in the past. Although Hasselbeck threw two interceptions, one of them was clearly not his fault. And of the four incomplete passes in Hasselbeck’s 12 attempts, one ball was batted at the line of scrimmage, another was dropped, a third was ruled incomplete only after an instant replay, and yet another came when he intentionally threw the pass away under pressure.

It was Hasselbeck’s final play of the first half that really drew Holmgren’s ire, so much so that he pulled the trigger during halftime.

“I understand his point of view,” Hasselbeck said. “He brought me in at halftime and talked to me and (quarterbacks coach) Jim Zorn, and said, ‘You’re not doing things my way. You’re still trying to do things your way. Until you do things my way, you’re not going to play.’

“And I know exactly what he’s talking about. I know exactly the play he’s talking about. If I had the play to do over again, I probably would.”

The play in question was a sack in the final minute of the first half. The Seahawks were trailing 20-7, with a first down at the Redskins’ 5-yard line, and they were in position to get within six points. Hasselbeck rolled out right and got sacked by Washington’s Marco Coleman, fumbling the ball just before he went down to the turf. The Redskins recovered the ball and went into the half with their 13-point lead.

Hasselbeck said he did not throw the ball away because he had been called for intentional grounding on a similar play earlier in the quarter and believed he could avoid the sack.

To his credit, Hasselbeck refused to point the finger afterward, even though his offensive line and receivers didn’t provide much help.

“I feel like I let the guys down today,” he said. “I know we can play better, and I know we can beat this team.”

In fact, this game was so bad that everyone in the Seahawks’ locker room readily took the blame. It was truly a team loss.

By halftime alone, Seattle had thrown two interceptions – one of which bounced off the hands of receiver Darrell Jackson – and fumbled three times. The defense, which came into the game ranked fourth in the NFL against the run, gave up 106 rushing yards in the first half alone. The Seahawks held Washington (3-5) to two field goals after the interceptions, but also gave up two long touchdown drives en route to a 20-7 halftime deficit.

Dilfer took over in the second half and didn’t fare much better, although his 46-yard touchdown pass to Jackson with 2:09 remaining in the third quarter put the Seahawks back within 13 points.

After that, the offense never got closer than the Washington 30-yard line.

“We didn’t capitalize on momentum, and I’ll take responsibility for that,” Dilfer said. “One of the things the quarterback has to do in that situation, when you regain the momentum, is to continue to make plays. There were some opportunities out of the pocket that I didn’t make, and I wish I could have those back. If I’d have made a couple of those plays, I think we could have gotten hot and made some things happen.”

Despite giving up a touchdown on Washington’s first drive, the Seahawks answered with a 41-yard touchdown run from Shaun Alexander. But Hasselbeck threw interceptions on the next two Seattle drives to help the Redskins take the lead for good.

“We scored on our first drive and everybody was feeling good about ourselves,” offensive lineman Walter Jones said. “But when you turn the ball over, it takes that intensity away. You keep on turning the ball over, you’ve got to fight harder and harder to get it back.”

While the Redskins earned their third consecutive victory, the Seahawks lost for the second time in a row.

“Clearly, we weren’t ready to play,” Holmgren said. “It starts with me. Our emotions weren’t what they have been the last few weeks. Washington came out and played with a lot of enthusiasm and intensity, and we didn’t match it. We just didn’t handle it very well.”

Any intensity that may have been missing during the game manifested itself in frustration afterward.

“It’s hard,” middle linebacker Levon Kirkland said. “The older I get, the more I hate losing.

“I’m not going to say we weren’t ready, but emotionally they were more intense than we were. That’s what we’ve been playing with, but it wasn’t there for some reason or another. And we’ve got to have it.”