SEATTLE — When the Seattle Seahawks and Chicago Bears take the field for a preseason game tonight at Qwest Field, both sides will feature a merry-go-round of rotating quarterbacks.
For the Bears, the game could go a long way toward deciding whether Rex Grossman or Kyle Orton will be Chicago’s starter this season.
For the Seahawks, there will be no such controversies.
As many as 10 NFL teams went to training camp with unsettled quarterback situations. Six others have young starting quarterbacks who have yet to prove themselves.
Then there are the Seahawks, who are among the half of the league that can concentrate on other worries.
While Matt Hasselbeck is likely to sit out today’s game because of a sore back, there isn’t much he needed to prove. The Pro Bowl quarterback gives head coach Mike Holmgren reason to sleep at night — even if some of the team’s other issues might jolt him from his slumbers.
“I think we have an advantage that way,” Holmgren said of having a starting quarterback set in stone. “Any team in the league that knows who their starter is going to be and can plan the preseason a certain way knowing that, you have a little bit of a leg up.”
Instead of frantically charting every step, drop and throw, or having to worry about the development of a young, inexperienced quarterback, the Seahawks can afford to give Hasselbeck a day off without having to worry about stunting his progress.
“He’s still developing — though he’s in his prime,” said Bill Lazor, the Seahawks’ new quarterbacks coach. “But it is great to have a guy who’s been through the fire, who knows a lot of the reasons that we do what we do, who can be poised on the field and who can make decisions at full speed.”
Today’s game will be more about giving backups Seneca Wallace and Charlie Frye some valuable playing time in case Hasselbeck gets hurt during the regular season. Wallace is entrenched as Hasselbeck’s top backup, but Frye could start today’s game so that the Seahawks can get an extended look at him.
It wasn’t all that long ago that the shoe was on the other foot. Preseason games were Hasselbeck’s time to shine, serving as an annual audition for the part of a lead actor’s stand-in. While serving as a practice squad player in Green Bay, and then as Brett Favre’s backup, Hasselbeck had to re-establish himself each August.
“In terms of a football career, it was life or death,” said Hasselbeck, who earned the nickname Mr. August while in Green Bay because of his preseason heroics.
Few starters can appreciate the star treatment of preseason games like Hasselbeck can.
“Those two (Orton and Grossman) are battling for a starting job. I can remember just battling for a job,” Hasselbeck said. “I can remember thinking: hey, if you don’t play the game of your life here, you probably don’t have a job next week. So it is a stressful deal.
“But even if you know you’re going to make the team, there are still things you need to work on. You need to approach it a certain way. But no one wants to have their job on the line each and every week; that’s not ideal.”
Neither Wallace nor Frye have much on the line, either. Frye has little to no chance of unseating Wallace, nor does Wallace have much chance of taking Hasselbeck’s job.
So while Orton and Grossman have everything to play for, Seattle’s quarterbacks are pretty well set.
“They can put a lot of pressure on themselves because they’re out there competing for a job,” Wallace said. “In my situation, we know who the quarterback is here; it’s going to be Matt.
“The main thing is to keep developing my skills, to make sure that if something were to happen to Matt, then I’d be prepared to play.”
The Seahawks are knocking on wood that nothing happens to Hasselbeck. As long as the 32-year old is healthy, Seattle seems to be in pretty good hands.
“People don’t realize how good he is,” Seahawks offensive coordinator Gil Haskell said. “He’s one of the top five quarterbacks in all of football. And 15 teams don’t have a quarterback that’s worth a damn. So I really appreciate him.”
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