KIRKLAND – After a seemingly endless summer of hypotheticals, roster moves and depth chart tweaking, the Seattle Seahawks are finally ready to get down to business this weekend.
The regular season opener at Jacksonville gives Seattle an opportunity to get its 2005 season off to a strong start.
The Seahawks have won their past two openers and gone on to see both seasons finish with a playoff game.
“You want to get into a groove,” wide receiver Bobby Engram said. “Winning is contagious. I felt like we’ve had as good a camp this year as we have the past two years, and if we go out and take care of our business, we should get off to a good start again.”
History doesn’t necessarily dictate that Week 1 victories guarantee a trip to the postseason, nor does a Week 1 loss give reason to throw in the towel, but season-opening wins proved to be vastly important last season.
In 2004, 11 of the 12 teams that went on to the postseason won their season openers. Only Indianapolis, which lost to eventual Super Bowl champion New England, bounced back from an 0-1 start to go on to the playoffs.
The rest of the NFL went 5-15 on opening day, with Tennessee, Jacksonville, Detroit, Cleveland and Washington being the only teams that opened with a victory but did not get to the playoffs.
“It’s not the end of the year if we lose the first game,” quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said, “but at the same time, it would be nice to win it. That’s been our focus. We started out 3-0 last year, with two wins on the road, and hopefully we can do something similar.”
The Seahawks have one of the worst opening-day records in football, which has a lot to do with the fact that it took nine seasons before the franchise got its first opening-day win. The 9-20 all-time record in openers have played a part in the Seahawks winning just three playoff games in franchise history.
Only six times in the 20 seasons Seattle opened with a loss did the Seahawks go on to post a winning record. By contrast, all but one season that started with a win resulted in eight wins or more.
Before Mike Holmgren came to town, the Seahawks held a 6-17 record in openers. He has won three of his six, all three of which resulted in winning seasons.
Each of the last two seasons, Seattle has won its opener, gone 3-0 heading into the bye week, and narrowly hung on to make it to the postseason. More than any playoff dreams, this year’s Seahawks are setting their sights on getting the season off on the right foot.
“You can’t go into the season trying to go 10-0 or 13-0,” Seahawks linebacker D.D. Lewis said. “The key thing right now is just to go 1-0.”
The Seahawks have spent almost nine months talking about having a good season, and beginning this Sunday, they can actually do something about it.
“We had a good camp, and now it gets a little more serious,” Holmgren said. “The first week of the season, every team in every city in the league has high expectations. It’s exciting.”
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