During their Super run in 2005, the Seattle Seahawks scored an incredible nine times on opening drives of games. The recipe of forcing their opponents to play catch-up made for some darned fine meals that year.
This year’s Seahawks have been a bit slower to get cooking.
In six games, Seattle (3-3) has scored on just one opening drive — and that came after Nate Burleson’s 72-yard kickoff return started the Seahawks off at the Cincinnati 24-yard line in Week 3.
Other than that, Seattle’s opening drives have been plagued by penalties, a stagnant running game and an overall lack of rhythm.
“We haven’t started the game the way I would like to start the game,” coach Mike Holmgren said this week, “or the way we started the game in years past. We’ve done it a couple times but not consistently enough.”
On the Seahawks’ six opening drives, they’ve accumulated just five first downs while averaging 3.8 yards per play and 16.7 yards per drive. Seattle has had three three-and-outs and scored a grand total of seven points.
It’s no wonder the Seahawks have trailed in the first half of all but one game this season.
“It’s very important to get off to a great start, in any game,” fullback Leonard Weaver said. “Any time you’ve got to come from behind, it makes it tough. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it’s tough to come back and get into a rhythm.”
In some games, like the wins over Tampa Bay and San Francisco, the offense took some time to get going. In other games, Seattle had some early success but got stopped by mistakes — like the back-to-back false-start penalties in the loss at Arizona, and a drive-killing sack in Sunday’s 28-17 defeat at the hands of the New Orleans Saints.
And it’s not just opening drives that have showed signs of rustiness. Too often this season, the Seahawks have needed at least a full quarter of football to find any kind of rhythm. Seattle has been outscored 23-7 in first quarters.
Holmgren likes to script out the first 15 plays of each game. The thinking is that the script takes the emotion out of play-calling early in games, and it also helps to set a tone each week.
But his scripts this season haven’t been the kind of stuff that warrant Tony Award nominations. The Seahawks are averaging just under 4.0 yards per play on their first 15, and the early touchdown in the Cincinnati game marked the only time the Seahawks have scored points from the script.
“We have been used to, in the past, going to down and scoring a fair amount of time in our first 15,” Holmgren said on Monday. “It’s not happening now, and we’re going to look (at that). That’s one of my projects this week.”
Holmgren added that he plans to continue using the script, although he and offensive coordinator Gil Haskell will be working overtime to make it more successful.
Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who has completed 15 of 20 passes on opening drives this season, said that the problem has not been a lack of rhythm but rather drive-killing mistakes.
“I could be wrong, but I feel like we’ve started off pretty good,” he said. “We just haven’t converted on that key third down; that’s really the difference. But our first play, second play of the game, pretty much all year I feel like it’s been pretty good.
“We’re ready (on Sundays). We’re prepared. It’s just a play here or a play there, a mistake here or a mistake there, that shuts the drive down.”
While Hasselbeck has made his share of mistakes early in games, the running game has been the most obvious reason for the offensive struggles. Shaun Alexander has carried the ball 18 times for just 15 yards during first-down plays on the first-15 script. Of those 18 first-down carries, the Seahawks have been stuck in second-and-8 or longer 14 times.
More often than not, that leads to difficult conversions on third down.
“I know it’s a lot harder to convert third-and-10,” Hasselbeck said this week. “We have hundreds of plays, and there is probably less than a handful for third-and-10.
“… We have to try to get out of those situations and try to get into manageable third downs and even then we have to convert on those.”
Too often, the Seahawks have put themselves in difficult situations this season. The way they’ve started games is a big reason why.
“It’s immensely difficult to try to come back,” tight end Marcus Pollard said. “(Against New Orleans), we had a turnover there at the start of the game that turned into an easy seven (points), and then we get a field goal blocked (in the second quarter), and that’s 10 points right there.
“We’ve got the people here and the system to do it, but it’s really hard to play from behind no matter how good your record is.”
Note: After placing defensive tackle Chartric Darby on injured reserve Monday, the team signed veteran Howard Green to fill his roster spot. The 6-foot-2, 330-pound Green has played with Minnesota and New Orleans since being drafted by Houston in 2003. Darby tore the patella tendon in his right knee and is out for the season.
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