SEATTLE – Whenever Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander has been asked about the possibility of his team playing a complete game, he has used the same adjective.
Scary.
It finally happened Sunday, with the Cleveland Browns playing the Janet Leigh part of horrified victim.
The Seahawks (8-4) won for the seventh time in as many home games by doing something they had not done all season. They put together a full 60 minutes on both sides of the football en route to a remarkably easy 34-7 win over the Browns at Seahawks Stadium.
“That’s the type of game you can feel good about,” offensive lineman Robbie Tobeck said. “Especially after coming off a game like last week, that meant a lot. It’s probably our best game to date in terms of a total game.”
The win over Cleveland had added significance because of the way Seattle bounced back from its most disappointing loss of the season. One week earlier, the Seahawks squandered a 17-point, fourth-quarter lead before falling 44-41 in an overtime game at Baltimore.
“That was a devastating loss,” said backup quarterback Trent Dilfer, who saw limited action in both games. “We tried to be mature about it and say, ‘We should have won it anyway,’ but we had it stolen from us, in my opinion. That’s very tough to swallow.
“You look at the Buccaneers, who had a game stolen from them (by Indianapolis) on Monday Night Football, and they couldn’t recover. We recovered right away. I think we’re stronger now than we were before that.”
The most important turnaround came from Seattle’s defense, which got picked apart for 426 yards against Baltimore but allowed just 214 in Sunday’s win over Cleveland. The only thing that kept the Seahawks’ defense from pitching its first shutout since Week 2 was a blocked punt late in the fourth quarter that the Browns returned for a touchdown.
“(After the Baltimore loss,) we kind of had to sit back and look at ourselves, and say, ‘That’s on us,’” linebacker Anthony Simmons said of the defense. “We knew we had to come out and be ready, play four quarters, and put a complete game together.”
The offense did its part as well, piling up more than 400 yards for the second week in a row. The win also marked the third consecutive game in which the Seahawks have scored at least 34 points.
On its way to a season-high 463 yards, Seattle had a 300-yard passer (Matt Hasselbeck), a 100-yard rusher (Alexander) and two 100-yard receivers (Darrell Jackson and Koren Robinson). It marked the first time in team history those feats have happened in the same game.
That doesn’t even include fullback Mack Strong, who chipped in with a career-high 56 receiving yards off four receptions.
“We’re very hard to defend,” said Dilfer, who relieved Hasselbeck late in the fourth quarter after the game was well out of hand. “We’re very balanced. When you utilize your fullback, which many teams don’t do, it adds a whole other dimension to our offense.”
Strong set the tone for the game early. He took a swing pass and rambled 32 yards to convert a third-and-17 on the opening drive. The Seahawks capped that drive with a touchdown when Hasselbeck hit tight end Itula Mili from 2 yards out.
Seattle went on to take a 17-0 lead before putting the game out of reach with three consecutive scoring drives to open the second half.
“We’ve had games where we’ve had leads, and we’re letting teams off the ropes. It’s something we’ve talked about all year, and something we talked about again today at halftime,” Tobeck said. “Hopefully, after last week, we’ve learned that you’ve got to keep them down, that you’ve got to keep your foot on their chest.”
The 34-0 lead looked like it would hold up until punter Tom Rouen bobbled a snap and took too much time trying to kick the ball. The extra step caused him to punt the ball into the back of snapper J.P. Darche. Cleveland’s Andre King scooped up the loose ball and ran 28 yards for a touchdown with 3:23 remaining in the game.
“The defense was hurt last week; their pride was wounded,” Seattle coach Mike Holmgren said. “It’s a shame they didn’t get the shutout. But they shut out Cleveland, and we gave up a special-teams play.”
Maybe the special-teams unit faltered, but Seattle’s other two units were nearly flawless. For one glorious Sunday afternoon at Seahawks Stadium, the home team had its offense and defense clicking at the same time – for all 60 minutes of a game.
“It was really, really good to see the defense play with so much emotion,” Alexander said. “They were banging folks around there. And we started off from the beginning making plays. It’s hard to lose when you do that. So it was a good win for us.”
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