KIRKLAND – Consider it a testament to how good the 2005 Seattle Seahawks are.
The past three times the Seahawks have played a Sunday game, coach Mike Holmgren has given them Monday off. While the treatment has been disguised as a reward, its basis might come from something much more important.
The fact is, this Seahawks team has a legitimate chance to be playing longer than any other. So Holmgren has lightened the physical load as of late in hopes of keeping his team fresher in January.
“You have to be careful this time of the year, in my opinion, of overpracticing,” said Holmgren, who also always gives the team Tuesdays off – win or lose – as part of the league’s requirement of a mandatory off day each week. “As long as they continue to keep focusing, and we have pretty good practices and we see that they’re studying and preparing, I see no reason to change what we’re doing.”
A few minutes after the Seahawks drubbed San Francisco to win their ninth consecutive game on Sunday, Holmgren told his players that they would get another day off. The response was akin to letting a group of third graders out for early recess.
“It was like Christmas came early,” Holmgren said Monday.
Not that Holmgren is letting his players off easy. He still challenges them – he admitted Monday that he was a bit grumpy at halftime of Sunday’s game, despite a 24-3 lead – and refuses to be too complimentary of his team in front of reporters.
Take Monday, for instance, when Holmgren responded to a question about his team’s 83-3 composite score the past couple weeks by saying, “I think we’re OK. We’re playing hard and making fewer mistakes.”
But make no bones about it: this team is the best one Holmgren has had during his seven years in Seattle. It might even be the best Seahawks squad ever.
Seattle has a chance to break the 1984 team’s record of 12 victories in a season, and the Seahawks are in position to host the conference championship for the first time in team history.
But Holmgren is still careful in his compliments. He did say Monday that the 2005 Seahawks are playing more as a unit than last season.
“Last year we had a team that was made up of a lot of individuals that were playing as individuals – talented, but playing as individuals,” he said. “This year’s team is younger – a lot of good football players, but the individuals are playing very much as a team. As good a team, that way, as I’ve ever had a group do.”
Perhaps his cautionary tone has something to do with superstition.
Holmgren told a story Monday about his days as a graduate assistant at Brigham Young University. He had carried a medallion in his pocket for every one of the Cougars’ 24 consecutive wins in 1983 and 1984, then lost it the day of the 1985 season opener.
As fate would have it, BYU went on to lose that game to UCLA.
“I was just a wreck,” Holmgren said. “That was the end of my superstition. I said I never wanted to feel anything like that again.”
Seattle currently has the second-longest winning streak in the NFL and has the best record in the NFC. With a victory over Tennessee on Sunday, and a loss by Chicago, the Seahawks would clinch a first-round bye and move one step closer to the NFC’s top seed heading into the playoffs.
So it’s understandable if Holmgren might be thinking a little longer term than usual.
While he doesn’t want his players to get too physically fatigued, Holmgren isn’t letting up on the mental side. With a chance to go where no Seahawks team has gone before, Holmgren is trying to make sure he’s pushing the right buttons.
“Hopefully I do the right thing,” he said. “We’re so close to something pretty good. Heck, we’ve come this far, (so) I’m not going to change.
“As I told (the players), I’m going to keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. Just understand why I’m doing it. I love (them) all, but I’m going to keep pushing.”
Is this year’s team the best in Seahawks history? Pick up today’s issue of The Herald to find out.
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