KIRKLAND — During a conference call with a relatively miniscule gathering of four Seattle reporters on Wednesday morning, Atlanta Falcons linebacker Keith Brooking spent 20 minutes covering just three subjects.
He expressed his regret for the team’s decision to cut ties with head coach Jim Mora after last season. Brooking admitted the shock he felt when quarterback Michael Vick was arrested, and ultimately incarcerated, for his part in a dogfighting ring. And most telling of all, Brooking called former head coach Bobby Petrino a “coward” for stepping down two-and-a-half weeks ago.
“I don’t know if I can really put it into words,” Brooking said when asked to describe the 2007 season. “Tough season is probably an understatement.”
While Brooking’s Falcons head into Sunday’s meaningless game with the Seattle Seahawks eager to put the 2007 season to rest, his opponents have a little problem of their own.
The Seahawks, you see, can’t decide whether to rest their star players for the following weekend’s playoff opener.
“It will be talked about — not just with us but a lot of teams — how to do this,” coach Mike Holmgren said during a Wednesday press conference that also had fewer media members than usual. “I thought a lot about it. I’m not sure there’s a right way to do it.
“I believe in momentum going into the playoffs. I do believe in that. At the same time, everyone holds their breath that no one gets hurt. So how do you balance that?”
It’s one of those welcome conundrums this time of year. Plenty of teams are lacking obvious motivation as days wind down toward the final week of the season, and the Seahawks and Falcons — for much different reasons — are among the teams with little incentive.
“Once you have clinched everything that’s possible to clinch,” Holmgren said, “then it boils down to the most basic fundamental thing that you talk about with every player: when I’m on the field, how do I play?”
The Seahawks (10-5) would much rather be in their situation than the one that has plagued Atlanta over the past 12 months. Since Mora was fired in January — he has since taken an assistant job with the Seahawks — the Falcons (3-12) have fallen to deeper depths than most franchises could even imagine.
Vick, who may well be the biggest star in franchise history, was indicted on charges of running a dogfighting ring in June. Because backup Matt Schaub had been traded to Houston two months earlier, the Falcons scrambled to find a starting quarterback and eventually turned to journeyman Joey Harrington.
The wheels on the 2007 season started to fall off after the Falcons got off to a 1-6 start under Petrino, a first-year NFL coach from the University of Louisville. Then things hit a new low on Dec. 10, when Vick’s trial ended in a 23-month sentence and the Falcons got pounded 34-14 against the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football.
The following day, Petrino resigned to take the vacant coaching position at Arkansas. He informed his players through a form letter, an act that rubbed many — like Brooking — the wrong way.
“To have him back out on me like that and quit, and go against everything he talked about — shoot, man, it floored me,” Brooking said during Wednesday’s conference call. “It hurt me bad. Betrayal came to mind; coward, quitter — so many things. I cannot put into words what would make him do something like that.”
Brooking learned of Petrino’s resignation not from the coach himself but from a television report.
“I was sitting on my couch in the living room with my son (Logan), and it came across the TV,” Brooking recalled. “I was mad, but I was like: ‘Screw (Petrino). I don’t want him here if he’s not in it.’
“… The day before, we were out there sacrificing everything for him and trying to lay it on the line for the Atlanta Falcons and (for) him, as our head coach. And 24 hours later, he was talking about how excited he was to be (at Arkansas). It made my skin crawl. I wanted to jump through the TV. I was very mad.”
Comparatively, the Seahawks have much better problems right about now.
Holmgren said during his Wednesday press conference that he still hasn’t decided how to handle playing time in the regular-season finale. But he did admit that quarterback Matt Hasselbeck is among the starters likely to get plenty of rest.
“I’m challenging them to come out and play this game hard,” he said. “And then, how the game kind of goes will determine some of the other things we’re talking about in (Wednesday’s press conference).”
As for finding motivation for a game that has no bearing on playoff positioning, Holmgren scoffed at the notion that players won’t be able to get up for Sunday’s game.
“Absolutely they want to play,” he said. “Look, playing the games on Sunday, that’s the fun part. Now they might want to scoot out of practice or two, but playing the games, they want to play.”
The last time the Seahawks were in a similar situation — during the regular-season finale in 2005 — Holmgren rested left tackle Walter Jones and pulled several other starters at halftime. He’s not admitting that this Sunday’s game could be more of the same, but it’s safe to assume that Matt Hasselbeck, Shaun Alexander and Bobby Engram could be among the players who will do a lot of standing around.
“We all want the same thing,” Holmgren said. “We want to go into the playoffs as strong as we can be. But at the same, we want to play every game (hard). I think the integrity of game is a little bit at stake.”
Atlanta’s Brooking also vowed to give his best, regardless of how the past 12 months have gone.
“Guys are motivated for different reasons — in our locker room and throughout the NFL,” Brooking said. “Some guys are motivated by money. Some are motivated by family. Some are motivated by pride.
“(Players) should be motivated because your resume is put out there every Sunday. We’re playing for a lot — still, to this day. I don’t care what anybody says.”
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