SEATTLE – Seahawks Stadium went out in style, what with an impressive run that included 11 consecutive victories in preseason and regular season games.
Now known as Qwest Field, the facility had a less-than-perfect debut to the 2004 preseason.
The Seahawks made their unofficial home debut in a preseason game Saturday evening, and with underwhelming results. Seattle generally bored the fans in a game dominated by field goals before eventually falling 19-3 to the Denver Broncos.
It marked Seattle’s seventh loss in as many preseason meetings with Denver, including three in the past three years by a combined score of 70-6.
“We didn’t play well tonight, and that might be the best thing that ever happened,” coach Mike Holmgren said afterward. “We were feeling pretty good about who we are and what we are, and maybe this will make us realize that nothing in this league comes easy.”
The Seahawks’ high-powered offense shot blanks Saturday night in a game that saw the starters play well into the second quarter. Even a decent performance from backup quarterback Seneca Wallace (12 for 26, 156 yards) couldn’t get the Seahawks into the end zone.
Seattle’s No. 1 offense may have been held to only 35 yards and three first downs over three series, but the performance wasn’t quite as bad as it looked. The Seahawks offense played without four projected starters, and their replacements showed why they are considered backups.
Fullback Heath Evans dropped two Matt Hasselbeck passes, receiver Jason Willis mishandled a third, while rookie left tackle Sean Locklear struggled at times in pass protection. If nothing else, the Seahawks realized how important Mack Strong, Koren Robinson and Walter Jones are to their team.
Running back Shaun Alexander had a couple of nifty runs, but otherwise the No. 1 offense looked flat. Hasselbeck completed just 2 of 7 passes for 16 yards, while getting sacked once.
After a five-play, 26-yard drive stalled at the Denver 45, the Seahawks’ next two drives didn’t even get past the Seattle 20.
“We didn’t bring our A game,” center Robbie Tobeck said. “There are no excuses. You have to be ready for everything when you take that field, and we weren’t. We should be embarrassed.”
Wallace came on with 21/2 minutes left in the first half and immediately got Seattle’s offense going. He completed a 45-yard pass to Robinson on their first play of the game, putting the ball at the Denver 15-yard line.
But that drive, too, eventually stalled, and the Seahawks had to settle for Josh Brown’s 28-yard field goal.
Seattle’s defense also kept Denver out of the end zone in the first half, led by the solid play of veterans Anthony Simmons, Chike Okeafor and Cedric Woodard. The Broncos had 178 yards of offense and two field goals in the first half for a 6-3 lead despite a time-of-possession advantage of nearly 3-to-1.
The Seahawks (1-1) tried to spice things up with a few long passes from Wallace in the second half, but most of those ended in incomplete passes or interference calls. Their best chance to score in the second half came when former University of Washington cornerback Roc Alexander was called for a pass interference penalty – one of two calls that went against the Denver rookie – to give Seattle possession at the Denver 46-yard line.
But back-to-back sacks of Wallace led to a fourth-and-33 from the Seattle 31.
Denver got the ball back, drove 69 yards in six plays, and scored the first touchdown of the game on Mike Anderson’s 7-yard run. It marked the first TD scored against Seattle after more than seven quarters of preseason play.
The Broncos, whose starters played almost the entire first half, finished with 385 yards of offense. Denver had 206 rushing yards, including 120 from Anderson. The backup running back did most of his damage in the second half, when Orlando Huff and Niko Koutouvides split time at middle linebacker for Seattle.
The Seahawks had just 183 yards of total offense. Wallace got sacked four times for minus-33 yards, while he was also called for an intentional grounding penalty that cost the team another 25 yards.
Overall, the performance left Seattle’s players and coaches wondering what went wrong.
“I don’t think we had a lot of emotion,” Holmgren said. “It’s unacceptable to play a game that way.”
There was emotion afterward, however.
“I hope guys are embarrassed; I hope they’re ticked off,” Tobeck said. “There’s always a lesson to be learned, and hopefully we learned a lesson here.
“I just know you have to bring your lunch pail every time you come to work.”
Notes: Left guard Steve Hutchinson re-joined the team after missing the previous week of practices to attend to the birth of his first child. Hutchinson was in the starting lineup, which forced Floyd Womack to move to right tackle. … Holmgren started Willis in place of Robinson and Evans in place of Mack Strong so he could evaluate some of the team’s younger players. … Play was delayed for about 10 minutes in the first half after a Seahawks employee was injured in a collision on the sideline. The unidentified man left the field while sitting on a stretcher but was not seriously hurt. … Former University of Washington cornerback Roc Alexander, a Denver rookie, was called for a holding penalty and flagged for pass interference. … The Seahawks returned to Cheney after the game but have today off. They will be back on the practice field Monday and will break camp Wednesday.
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