SEATTLE — He wasn’t the Shaun Alexander of old, and maybe that player will never exist again.
Still, what the Seattle Seahawks’ 30-year-old running back did Sunday provided not only a flashback to the days when his runs were critical to the team’s success, but a glimpse of what the Hawks will need in the playoffs.
Alexander, a two-yards-and-a-cloud-of-frustration runner much of this season, gained 73 yards on 13 carries in the Seahawks’ 27-6 victory Sunday over the Baltimore Ravens.
“It was the best I’ve felt all year and that’s a good thing,” said Alexander, who missed three games at midseason because of a knee injury.
OK, the Ravens were missing Ray Lewis and three other Pro Bowl defensive players because of injuries. And a 73-yard day is far from what Alexander regularly pulled off during his 1,800-plus-yard season in 2005, when he helped lead the Seahawks to the Super Bowl.
But, after what Alexander has experienced this season, Sunday’s game was a breakout performance. It was his best since the fourth week of the season when he gained 78 yards against the San Francisco 49ers. In the eight games until Sunday, he gained 259 yards on 75 carries, an average of 3.5 yards per carry.
Sunday, he averaged 5.6 and his runs included a 19-yarder early in the second quarter to help set up the Seahawks’ first touchdown.
Then he caught quarterback Matt Hasselbeck’s screen pass late in the second quarter and scampered to the end zone for a 14-yard touchdown. It was Alexander’s 111th’s career touchdown and his 12th receiving TD, and the first touchdown pass he caught since Dec.24, 2005, against the Colts.
“I thought Shaun ran the ball hard today,” coach Mike Holmgren said. “He did a beautiful job on the screen pass. If it ever had to come, I’m glad it comes now. It’s a good time of the year for us to hopefully get that going a little bit.”
Alexander didn’t play in the Seahawks’ first three series because Holmgren chose to use Maurice Morris in a no-huddle approach. Asked his reaction to not starting, Alexander didn’t quite plow forward with the question like he did with the football.
“I’m put in a catch-22 almost every week when I get asked the question,” he said. “If I say it matters, then people say I’m not being a team player. But if I say it’s good then people think, ‘Do you care?’ We come into the game, just like every game, with game plans to win, to put up numbers, but the biggest thing is to win and I believe in that.”
When Alexander did get into the game, he was a key presence to a rushing attack that gained a season-best 144 yards. It will be important to maintain that when the Seahawks begin the playoffs in two weeks because balanced offense, if not a grind-it-out running game, typically succeeds in the postseason.
“There are few teams in the history of the NFL that have won Super Bowls without running the ball well,” Alexander said. “You’re almost kidding yourself if you think you can beat teams in the playoffs, especially going on the road — which we’ll have to do at least once — if you don’t run the ball well. So it’s a thing that we have been working on as a group this whole year, and hopefully we’re about to turn a corner.”
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