SEATTLE – During the course of his first NFL start, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Seneca Wallace came to the sideline and got some surprising advice from his head coach.
Mike Holmgren offered two words that Wallace hadn’t heard very often during his transition from a scrambling college star to a complete NFL quarterback.
Run more, Holmgren told him.
“There have been times while he’s been playing where I’d say: ‘Hey, 1, 2, then take off,’” Holmgren said last week. ” ‘Go ahead and take off. Put the pressure on the defense that way. I know you can stay in there and do the other things. You don’t have to please me on this at all.’”
Overall, Wallace did please his coach and teammates in his starting debut last week. But he didn’t do enough to produce a victory, and so this week the coaches are imploring Wallace to let his natural instincts take over a little more.
“The protection was good (last weekend), and I just tried to hang in there,” said Wallace, who will make his second NFL start tonight against the Oakland Raiders.
Wallace spent most of last Sunday’s game against Kansas City sitting in the pocket and looking for open receivers. He did scramble three times for 21 yards, but Holmgren doesn’t mind if he moves around even more this week.
“I think he’s worked very hard to establish himself as a quarterback and a guy who can handle the pocket and do the things most of the quarterbacks in the league have to do,” Holmgren said. “As a result, maybe he has stayed in (the pocket).”
The Seahawks don’t want to tinker with Wallace’s game too much because he was pretty successful in his starting debut. Wallace completed 17 of 34 passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns. While he was intercepted twice and misfired on a few other throws, Wallace did enough to put the Seahawks in position to win the game.
“He was making plays,” tight end Jerramy Stevens said. “He’s going to be fine. (The rest of the players) need to hold up our end.”
Stevens is among those who expect even bigger things out of Wallace tonight against the Raiders.
“He looked good (last week), but he looked even better this week in practice,” Stevens said last Thursday, “so I expect him to go out there and keep building.”
With each week, Wallace hopes to build on last week’s performance.
“There is still a long way to go,” Wallace said last week. “I am still learning and trying to see different things out there on the playing field that you might not see out here in practice.”
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