KIRKLAND — When rookie linebacker Lofa Tatupu arrived in Seattle as a second-round draft pick in 2005, his Seahawks teammates were a pretty green bunch when it came to postseason play. Only seven players from the 53-man roster of that team had ever won a playoff game.
One of the Seahawks’ biggest hurdles that year was playoff inexperience. Or, as Tatupu pointed out, a lack of quality experience.
“They went to the playoffs before; they just lost,” the third-year linebacker said this week. “That’s experience. It’s not a great experience, but it’s experience.”
Of course, the ‘05 Seahawks went to the Super Bowl after the 2005 season, so experience is no longer an issue when it comes to postseason play.
“This team is no stranger to the playoffs,” running back Shaun Alexander said. “We know what is going to happen and what to expect. I am sure there hasn’t been a situation that we haven’t been through in the last five years that we are not going to see (this time around).”
The Seahawks enter this year’s postseason as the most experienced team in the NFC. Fourteen of Seattle’s 22 starters have started five playoff games or more, while only one other NFC team — Green Bay, with eight — has more than five starters who have played in at least five postseason games.
Seattle’s starting lineup has 111 combined playoff games under its belt, or 26 more than any of the NFC’s other participants. Washington, which will face the Seahawks in a playoff opener on Saturday, has just 59 combined playoff games among the starters.
“Guys know what to expect, for the most part,” said wide receiver Bobby Engram, whose seven postseason appearances have all come with the Seahawks.
Safety Brian Russell, whose participation in just two playoff games makes him among the least experienced veterans on the team, said the Seahawks will be ready for the intensity of postseason play.
“Those lights get a little brighter when you play in a playoff game,” he said. “Having that experience of being there helps everybody. The young guys feed off the guys that are calm and know how to win the big games.”
Marcus Pollard, a 35-year-old tight end, has played in more postseason games (11) than any other Seahawk. But he downplayed the significance of Seattle’s wealth of playoff experience.
“To say that experience is going to be a factor, I can’t hang my hat on that,” Pollard said. “How the offense and how the defense plays, that’s how we’ll give ourselves the best chance to win.”
The 2005 Seahawks were an obvious example of how a team can overcome a lack of quality experience. Despite a rather young roster that hadn’t had much postseason success, Seattle went to the Super Bowl that season.
Maybe that’s why Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren spent part of his Wednesday press conference shrugging off the importance of his current team’s playoff experience.
“I think it helps us, but I don’t think it’s an advantage against a team like Washington,” he said, referring to Saturday’s first-round opponent. “Their (coaching) staff, obviously, is a very playoff-experienced staff.”
This weekend, the Seahawks might be missing the player who has had the most playoff success. Wide receiver Deion Branch, who was a Super Bowl MVP and has played in 10 postseason games, has been hobbled by a calf injury that leaves his availability in question.
The only other player on the active roster with a Super Bowl ring is reserve defensive lineman Ellis Wyms, who won a title with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers five years ago.
The Redskins also have just two players with Super Bowl rings — linebacker London Fletcher and wide receiver Antwaan Randle El — but have only two other starters who have played in more than four postseason games.
When the starting lineups are on the field for any of Seattle’s playoff games against NFC opponents, the Seahawks will be the more experienced team.
“It’s big,” linebacker Julian Peterson said of the experience factor. “Guys have been to the playoffs and to Super Bowls.
“But the ultimate thing is that no (starters) on our defense have ever won a championship. We all want to get to the promised land and feel the confetti on us instead of watching it come down for someone else. We want to be the one popping the bottles.”
That, of course, would be Tatupu’s definition of a good playoff experience.
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