SEATTLE – Tailback Shaun Alexander spent much of his post-game comments describing how his Seahawks have changed from last season.
He mentioned how much better the attitude was, how much more together the group was and how much improved the team was over last season. Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
“Guys were coming up to me and saying, ‘Dude, we’re different,” Alexander said. “And it is. We’re going to fight for each other, always until the end of every game.”
Two games into the season, however, the Seahawks appear much the same inconsistent, fragile bunch that came from ahead to lose in five of its eight defeats in 2004, including the playoffs.
They got away with it Sunday, but barely. And after halftime, the offense was busy fighting only itself.
On one hand, Sunday’s game wasn’t against the Fightin’ Nancy Boys of lower London. In the Atlanta Falcons, the Seahawks faced one of the top three teams in the NFC and in Michael Vick, certainly the most exciting and least predictable quarterback in the NFL.
That’s what made Seattle’s first half, especially the sizzling second quarter, so invigorating. Up 21-0, scoring all three touchdowns in a hoe-down of a second quarter, the Seahawks not only played as well as they can play on both sides of the ball, but they did it against the powerful Falcons.
The fact that they needed every one of those points, though, to avoid an unsettling loss did nothing for Alexander’s assertion that this is a different Seahawks team, one that will close the show, one that won’t give up a big lead, one that won’t blow it.
They didn’t, as they did too often in recent seasons.
But they almost did.
“I was thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, here we go again,’” Seattle coach Mike Holmgren said.
Holmgren can thank a revamped defense for his team’s 1-1 record, because the offense, as skilled and potentially explosive as it is, played just half a game. The most troublesome aspect: It’s officially a 2005 trend.
For the second time in as many games, the Seahawks offense didn’t manage a point in the second half. It showed the same inability to adjust to a defense against Atlanta Sunday as it did the previous Sunday against Jacksonville.
Against the Jaguars, the culprit was turnovers. Against the Falcons, the Seahawks came uncomfortably close to 0-2 because of ill-timed penalties and other mental mistakes.
Up 21-10 early in the fourth quarter, the Seahawks had a huge chance to close out the game – second-and-4 and the ball on the Falcons’ 18-yard line.
But Mack Strong was called for a tripping penalty, which set the offense back 10 yards. Two plays later, Robbie Tobeck was flagged for a hold. Ten more yards back.
On the following snap, Chris Gray was called for a false start. So if you’re scoring at home, it’s three senseless penalties, worth 25 yards, against three of the offense’s most reliable veterans.
Another reliable one, receiver Bobby Engram topped it all off on the next play, losing a fumble at the Falcon 45. All Atlanta did was drive 55 yards for a touchdown in six plays and hit tight end Alge Crumpler on a pass for a two-point conversion. Suddenly, it was 21-18 with four minutes left.
It is here when good teams close it out with one last clock-draining possession. Instead, the Seahawks gave up the ball in one series of downs, thanks to a badly conceived end run by Shaun Alexander that lost 4 yards and a pass from Matt Hasselbeck to tight end Jerramy Stevens that fell 8 yards behind him.
“Miscommunication,” Hasselbeck said. “Usually, that is a wide receiver running that. I was thinking one thing and Jerramy was thinking another.”
One question: Why? Don’t you save only the safest, best-executed plays in this situation, one without any needless wrinkles or potential glitches?
Instead, the Seahawks gave the Falcons one more crack at at least a tie.
But the Seahawks’ defense, which played superbly all game long, came through once more. Bryce Fisher sacked Vick for a 1-yard loss. Vick and his sore hamstring left the game in favor of backup Matt Schaub, whose fourth-down pass to Roddy White was knocked down by Andre Dyson.
It didn’t have to be that interesting. In a mirror image of the loss to the Jaguars a week before, the Seahawks’ offense went scoreless in the second half, gained half the rushing yardage in the second half as it did in the first and a third of the passing yardage.
Hasselbeck, who was 13-for-16 passing in the first half, missed on his first six throws after intermission and was just 7-of-15 in the second half.
In the second quarter alone, the Seahawks outscored the Falcons 21-0, had a 13-0 lead on first downs and out-gained them, 219 yards to 13.
And still, they nearly blew it.
Alexander can talk all he wants about what a difference a year makes.
Yet, in the season’s first two games, it appears to be mere talk.
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