Seattle – Joe Jurevicius knows Super Bowls. And he knows the paths to them.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
The Seahawks’ veteran receiver has been where his teammates want to be. A Super Bowl participant with the New York Giants and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jurevicius is a Buddha among his followers.
And he says Sunday’s improbable 13-10 victory over a very good Dallas Cowboys team could mean much in the long term. The victory was the type the Seahawks too many times had bungled away. This one demanded chutzpah. This one demanded single-mindedness.
This one was different. And the players knew it. Especially Jurevicius.
“I think it’s a huge step,” he said. “You have to win games like this. You’re supposed to win the games you’re supposed to win and you’re supposed to win tough games. You can’t underestimate the value of winning. And we have three in a row now.”
Just feet from him, center Robbie Tobeck could be heard giggling like a 10-year-old. Tackle Steve Hutchinson, a fearsome-looking 310-pounder with a sinister goatee, grinned and slapped teammates on the back, his menacing features melting angelically.
“There’s a lot of grown men in the locker room right now acting like kids,” quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said. “It’s just an emotional time. It’s moments like this when you really come together as teammates and as a team. It’s an awesome feeling.”
Dallas newspaper headlines this morning will scream that the Seahawks stole one, that the Cowboys gave it away with late penalties and a killing interception.
But this was the type of game that the Seahawks would lose, including the crushing, 20-17 overtime defeat at Washington.
But this game was more important, potentially, than the difference between a record of 5-2 and 4-3.
Word around the league was that the Seahawks were soft, that you could beat them by being physical, take away Hasselbeck’s noteworthy connections with his receivers and turn Shaun Alexander any way but loose.
The Cowboys did all that Sunday. Missing Seahawks killer Julius Jones to an ankle sprain, Dallas nevertheless pounded the Seahawks with 164 rushing yards, 95 by rookie Marion Barber.
On defense, the Cowboys routinely put eight and nine defenders on or near the line of scrimmage and relentlessly rushed Hasselbeck into a below-par 23-for-42 passing day, for 224 yards and a pair of interceptions. They held the NFL’s leading rusher, Shaun Alexander, to an average of 2.9 yards a carry.
“It felt like a family reunion back there,” Alexander said.
The league’s leading offense looked anything but. It appeared that the injury absences of starting receivers Bobby Engram and Darrell Jackson had finally caught up to them.
For the Seahawks, offensive hardship traditionally has been bad news. Unable to score consistently, the Seahawks were forced to turn to the defense to stay close. Even as recently as last season, that meant curtains and almost certain defeat.
Not Sunday.
Maybe the defenders were spurred on by injured safety Ken Hamlin, in a hospital bed following an assault in Pioneer Square the previous Sunday that left him with a broken hand, a fractured skull and bruising in his brain.
After all, it was Hamlin who added some videotaped words of inspiration at the end of a highlight tape his teammates viewed Saturday night.
“He was just telling us to do what we do, that we’re Seahawks and we’re winners,” Alexander said. “It’s going to be exciting to go by the hospital, give him another game ball and telling him we do what we do.”
Whatever the reason, whatever the inspiration, the Seahawks beat the Cowboys on guts. They hung in, kept the game close and took advantage of mistakes. They came back by scoring 10 points in the last two minutes.
Hasselbeck finally dodged the Cowboys’ tenacious blitz and completed four of six passes for 58 yards on the game-tying drive, including the 1-yard scoring throw to seldom-used tight end Ryan Hannam with 40 seconds left on the clock.
They made the Cowboys pay big-time for mindless penalties on the tying drive and ultimately, for Drew Bledsoe’s interception by nickel corner Jordan Babineaux.
That’s what tough-minded teams do. Those are the types of games won only by the most mentally robust. And that’s exactly what the Seahawks have not been up to now.
Last season, they lost to Dallas because of it. They lost to St. Louis three times for the same reason.
In the past, we’ve heard the Seahawks claim that this is a different season, this is a different team and this year will be different. Finally, it’s starting to show signs of turning the corner.
“Talk is cheap,” Hasselbeck said. “You just have to actually go do it.”
They did it Sunday.
And the feeling afterward in the locker room was that they finally know how to do it consistently.
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