For too long, the Seahawks have been bland and boring.
And sometimes bad. Very bad.
Fans stayed away from games. Writers stayed away from games if they had something better to cover. Which didn’t take much. A dog show would have sufficed. That’s what many Seahawks games were – dogs – so why not see the real thing?
Dogs are cute and entertaining. The Seahawks were ugly and dull.
That was supposed to change with Mike Holmgren as coach. Unfortunately, it hasn’t.
It could be about to, though. Now that Trent Dilfer has been designated the starting quarterback for the 2002 season.
That’s what Seahawk fans have been wanting since early in the 2001 season. But Holmgren wasn’t about to let the ticket-buyers dictate who his quarterback would be.
Which was as it should be. He’s the man.
But when it became apparent that the Seahawks played better with Dilfer calling the signals than with Matt Hasselbeck taking the snaps, the coach should have said, “You know, they could be right.”
The Hawks were 4-0 behind Dilfer last fall, 5-7 behind Hasselbeck.
Could your Aunt Martha have figured out who should be starting?
Holmgren couldn’t. Or didn’t want to, rather. Hasselbeck was his boy. His lab project. You could practically read his thoughts. “Do not tell me about quarterbacks! I am a genius when it comes to making quarterbacks!”
Maybe so.
But this project needs time. And time is of the essence for Holmgren.
In three years as the Seahawks’ coach, his teams are 24-24. They’ve made the playoffs once, then got beat in the first round.
I don’t think he’s on a hot seat, but I would imagine that it’s at least warm.
NFL owners are an impatient lot. They want to win. Now!
If Holmgren were coaching the Washington Redskins, he might have been dumped already.
Redskins owner Daniel Snyder goes through coaches the way Liz Taylor goes through husbands.
Seahawks owner Paul Allen seems to be a bit more patient.
But the fans are less tolerant.
And why not? The Hawks have been to the playoffs once in their past 13 seasons. During that stretch, they’ve had three winning seasons.
They used to own Seattle and the entire Northwest.
No longer. The Mariners – for years the laughingstock up here – are the kingpins. The region lives and dies with these guys.
There’s an old story that you used to be able to leave two M’s tickets on your windshield, go into a store, come back out and find four. Now you’re lucky if you can score a pair of bleacher seats on game day.
Walk up to Husky Stadium on Seahawks game days last year and you could sit about anywhere you wanted.
NFL teams never really tell us how many people are in the stands, but if the Hawks drew 50,000 to any home game, I’d be shocked.
Again, bland and boring doesn’t cut it. Unless a team is winning. Then fans will cut it some slack.
Something had to be done to revive interest in this team. And the obvious place to begin was at quarterback.
Dilfer is in as starter. Hasselbeck is out – for now.
I have a feeling Dilfer is going to be in there for a good long while. I also have the feeling he is going to do some very good things for the Hawks. Such as lead them to double-digit victories and into the playoffs.
I know, I know, they’re going into the NFC West, where they’ll butt heads with the Rams and the 49ers twice each.
Hey, the Patriots beat the Rams in the Super Bowl. Behind a quarterback who had thrown three passes in the NFL starting the season. ‘Nuff said.
Trent Dilfer is a veteran. He has a Super Bowl ring. He wins games (15 in a row, at last count).
His teammates believe in him. All you have to do is watch them when he’s on the field. They develop some swagger. They don’t have that when Hasselbeck is in there.
With Dilfer at quarterback, the Seahawks may not be the exciting floor show that the Rams are with Kurt Warner, but I don’t think they’ll be bland and boring, either. They have a fine young running back in Shaun Alexander. They have some exciting young receivers. They have a coach who was big enough to maybe swallow a little pride and put his quarterback experiment on hold.
I recently heard a Seahawk fan say she was reluctant about purchasing tickets as long as Hasselbeck was the starting quarterback. When word came down that Dilfer was in, she was ready to write out a check then and there for tickets.
The fans want to have a reason to come and see the Hawks besides the opening of the new stadium this fall.
Now they do.
Let the fun begin.
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