CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Much like his play on the football field, Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander is running out of places to go.
When asked about Seattle’s stagnant ground game after Sunday’s 13-10 loss to Carolina, the aging star could only shrug his shoulders.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” he said after Seattle was held to 44 rushing yards as a team. “You don’t have to talk about what we’re doing. You all watch the games; it is what it is.”
What it has been all season is an exercise in futility. Seattle’s running game has been a shell of its former self, and things don’t seem to be getting any better. Alexander had 17 yards on seven carries, while Maurice Morris added 15 yards on four carries.
What’s even more amazing about Alexander’s total is that he had a 20-yard gain on one carry.
“Everything’s fixable, but we’re not moving in the right direction to fix it,” Alexander said. “We have to go into the meeting rooms again and decide what we want to do.
“The good thing about this team, we all like each other and enjoy playing together. We just have to go do it. We haven’t righted the ship, and we need to.”
The Seahawks are averaging just 93.4 rushing yards per game as a team, and they haven’t had a runner go over 100 yards in a game since Alexander had 105 in the season opener. The last two games, during which coach Mike Holmgren has split carries between Alexander and Morris, have brought a grand total of 124 yards on the ground.
“We’ve had trouble all season long,” a visibly frustrated Holmgren said after Sunday’s game. “We’re going to keep trying, but to think that we are going to all of a sudden become this power running team is a little foolish. We’ll keep trying, but today we couldn’t run a lick.”
Of the Seahawks’ 12 running plays Sunday, not including two scrambles from quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, half of them went for zero yards or less. Three times, Seahawks runners were dropped behind the line of scrimmage.
The Seahawks have been particularly bad in short-yardage situations this season, and that was the case again on Sunday. Seattle ran three times when needing a single yard for a first down, and failed on all three tries. The Seahawks had a 2-for-8 conversion rate when needing three yards or less for a first down, and the two successful plays were both passes.
On one play that seemed to summarize the season, Alexander took a handoff on third-and-1 and fell down while trying to avoid a tackle in the backfield.
“You just run the play,” he said when asked to describe what happened on that six-yard loss. “After a while, when your team is not doing well, you run the play. When your team is doing well, you don’t do that to make sure you’re doing your job. That’s part of the game.”
In the end, Seattle’s lack of a run game forced the one-dimensional Seahawks to do just what the Panthers expected. And without any mystery, Seattle had trouble moving the ball.
“I think this loss will be better for us because we have to get things fixed,” Alexander said. “We’ve all been saying it, but when you lose, it brings more attention to it.”
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