KIRKLAND – Pick your poison, Seattle Seahawks.
Seven receptions, 131 yards and four touchdowns?
Or eight receptions, 133 yards and two touchdowns?
At least two of the Minnesota Vikings’ receivers are capable of those kinds of numbers, as the Seahawks know all too well.
Marcus Robinson had the former numbers in a game against Seattle while playing for the Baltimore Ravens last November. Minnesota’s Randy Moss put up the latter against the Seahawks two weeks later.
Combined, Robinson and Moss piled up 15 receptions, 264 yards and six touchdowns in a pair of wins over the Seahawks last season. Moss had touchdowns of 47 and 45 yards, while Robinson had a 50-yarder among his four scores.
“Last year doesn’t mean anything,” Seahawks free safety Ken Hamlin said.
With all due respect to Robinson, Seattle will put most of its effort into shutting down Moss. An ankle injury has limited him to modest numbers this year (34 receptions, 465 yards and nine touchdowns), but the 27-year-old star is due for a breakout game.
Moss had just that in a Dec. 7, 2003, meeting with Seattle. He was so dominant in the Vikings’ 34-7 win that Seahawks cornerback Ken Lucas, the most obvious victim of both of Moss’s touchdowns, lamented afterward: “I hope I never have another game like this, ever in my life.”
Lucas hasn’t been in much of a talking mood lately, due mostly to the Seahawks’ recent struggles.
“They’re all talented guys,” he said Thursday when asked about the Minnesota receiving corps. “I don’t really want to talk about it because talking hasn’t been getting things done. We just have to go out there and take care of our business.”
Working in the Seahawks’ favor this week is that Moss still isn’t 100 percent. Vikings coach Mike Tice even said that he hoped to cut down the star receiver’s number of plays, from more than 50 in last Sunday’s loss to Chicago to somewhere in the 30-40 range this week.
“I’d love to see him in the high 30s, but it is hard to get him off the field,” Tice said. “And my arms aren’t that long, so I can’t snatch him off the field.”
Moss is the kind of player that draws so much attention that it opens up things for those around him. That was the case in last year’s win over Seattle, when the Seahawks were so intent on preventing him from scoring a third touchdown that they left receiver Kelly Campbell wide open on a 43-yard score.
But the Seahawks won’t forget about Robinson, who torched them for nine of the 31 passes he caught all year.
“He’s a good wide receiver that they added to their squad, and they’ve got four or five wides that can get it done,” Hamlin said. “But I think we’ve got good guys too, and we’ve just got to go out and play like we know how.”
Robinson is the Vikings’ No. 3 receiver, behind Moss and Nate Burleson, a product of Seattle’s O’Dea High School. But Robinson has been an impact player, with 41 receptions for 581 yards and seven touchdowns.
He even had a game earlier this season that looked something like the Seattle-Baltimore game last season, catching nine passes for 150 yards and two touchdowns in an overtime win over Houston.
Seattle’s starting cornerbacks – Lucas and Marcus Trufant_ are much improved players since last season. The biggest games by opposing receivers this season came by Carolina’s Muhsin Muhammad (eight receptions, 106 yards, two touchdowns), Miami’s Chris Chambers (9-103-1) and the Dallas Cowboys’ Keyshawn Johnson (6-116-1). The Seahawks’ corners gave up only one touchdown of longer than 16 yards in those games, winning two of three.
A Seattle victory this weekend could depend on whether the Seahawks can contain one – if not both – of the Vikings’ veteran wideouts.
“It’s the theme of the week: we want to eliminate the big play,” Trufant said. “That’s been one of our goals this year.”
NOTES: Fan waiting to see a spark out of this team should have been at Thursday’s practice. Defensive end Chike Okeafor and offensive lineman Wayne Hunter got into a brawl that was so fierce it took several teammates to pull them apart. Okeafor and Hunter, who also got into a practice fight last year, talked out their differences outside the locker room later. … Seahawks wide receivers Jerry Rice and Darrell Jackson were held out of Thursday’s practice but are expected to play Sunday. Rice suffered a quadriceps injury at Wednesday’s practice, while Jackson has missed two days of practice due to illness. They were added to the injury report but are listed as probable. … Minnesota defensive tackle Chris Hovan, a former Pro Bowler who has been a healthy inactive the past two weeks, is expected to return to the Vikings’ defense on Sunday.
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