Like a good novel, Lofa Tatupu’s first regular season had an intriguing start and continued to build, all the way up to his climactic performance during a Monday Night Football win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Dec. 5.
After a not-so-memorable ending, the Seattle Seahawks’ rookie middle linebacker is eager to start working on the postscript.
His nationally televised game against the Eagles – nine tackles, four passes defensed and an interception return for a touchdown – not only put Tatupu near the top of the list for the Defensive Rookie of the Year award; it also forced offensive coordinators to start game-planning for him.
That resulted in a rather quiet final four games that saw him make just 15 tackles, good for fifth on the team. After making at least five tackles in every one of his first 12 NFL games, Tatupu has had four or less in three of the past four weeks.
“They’ve got to game-plan certain individuals, and I’m trying to be one of those,” said Tatupu, whose 105 tackles during the season were the most on the team. “I think that means you’re doing your job.
“… It’s not as easy as it was in the first few games, when I was really doing well. I don’t want to say I’m not doing well now, but my productivity hasn’t been what it was. I’d like to think that’s a reason why. But you’d have to ask the other offensive coordinators if that’s true.”
If nothing else, Tatupu has seen different offensive strategies over the past month. Offenses have shifted their blocking schemes, run plays away from him, and on one play Tatupu even saw his first NFL double team.
“Now I’ve got kind of an idea of what it’s like to be (Marcus) Tubbs and Rocky (Bernard) and Chuck (Darby) and all them,” he said of the double-team strategy that’s typically used on Seattle’s defensive tackles. “But I did get a five-yard running start, so it wasn’t as bad.”
It’s been quite a change from early in the season, when teams tried to run right at the undersized rookie because they thought Tatupu might be a weak link. Several times during the first half of the season, the USC product shrugged off impressive performances by saying that the opposing team didn’t send many blockers his way.
“That was when he was a rookie and before he started making any plays,” teammate Kevin Bentley said this week. “What is any team going to do with a rookie? What do most rookies do? They fall on their face. But he didn’t do that.
“He played well, he started making plays, and then from that point on it was like, ‘OK, we’ve got to account for this guy.’ And now they’re accounting for him. He might as well get ready for that. That’s going to be the way throughout (his career) now.”
The good news for Seahawks fans is that the extra attention hasn’t altered the success of Seattle’s run defense. The Seahawks finished the season ranked fifth in the NFL in rushing yards allowed per game (94.4), and over the past four weeks they’ve given up just 63.5 while the attention on Tatupu paved the way for teammates to make most of the plays.
“However it happens,” Tatupu said. “Usually it’s just pick-your-poison.”
Seattle’s 6-foot, 238-pound rookie has overcome plenty of odds before, so he’s confident that he’ll find a way to break through the extra attention.
“It’s something you’ve kind of got to deal with on the fly,” Tatupu said. “You don’t know how they’re going to come at you. You just watch more film and be as prepared as you can for any situation.”
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