By Scott M. Johnson
Herald Writer
KIRKLAND – Another step forward. And with it, another week of renewed expectations.
Now the question is whether the Seattle Seahawks have figured out how to avoid taking two steps back.
This team has recorded big wins before, as it did with a 34-27 victory over the AFC West-leading Oakland Raiders on Sunday night. For the most part, the big wins have been followed by surprising losses. And just when the losses seem too much to overcome, Seattle rattles off another unexpected win.
That kind of inconsistency is what separates an 8-8 team from a legitimate playoff contender.
So could the latest win be any different for the Seahawks?
“There’s no way to really tell until we put some games together,” tight end Christian Fauria said. “But to me, being here as long as I have, I can kind of tell the difference. In the past, there were a lot of real hollow assurances. Last year, I kept saying, ‘We’re a good team.’ But we weren’t – at all. I didn’t want to say we weren’t, because I didn’t want to admit defeat and to have a bad attitude.
“But this year, from top to bottom, I really think we’ve got a lot of talent, a lot of leaders, and some young guys that just need to learn.”
The team’s inconsistency has been coach Mike Holmgren’s biggest frustration during his tenure in Seattle. He has tried a myriad of tactics to keep the players focused every week, but their effort seems to oscillate as the season wears on.
“We’ve played some stinkers and we’ve played some really good games,” Holmgren said. “(The way to control it is) appealing to the players and the leaders of the team to get the message out, do some talking, do some extra work in the locker room this week. They get tired of hearing me talk. I know that. And now, let it come from the team.”
The difference between Sunday’s Seahawks and the team that showed up the previous week is remarkable. In a 27-14 loss to the Washington Redskins nine days ago, the Seahawks allowed the lowest-ranked offense in the NFL to gain 365 yards, including 230 via the rush. One week later, while playing the eighth-ranked offense, Seattle held the Raiders to 88 rushing yards, and 338 total.
Offensively, the Seahawks had 275 yards (60 rushing) against Washington’s 30th-ranked defense, and 497 yards (219 rushing) against Oakland’s eighth-ranked defense.
“A lot of highs and lows,” Fauria said. “A lot of guys see how good we can be. But we’ve been kind of saying since the beginning of the season that it’s a matter of consistency. It’s showing up every week. You can’t just turn it on and turn it off. We’ve got to turn it on and turn it up, especially in the second half of the season.”
The most obvious reason for the up-and-down play this season is a young offense that includes five players who are in their first full year as NFL starters.
“At some point, you have to make the decision when you’re building a team or however you want to do it, where you have to re-tool and get some youth in there,” Holmgren said. “And hopefully you just kind of hold it together and hang on for dear life. We’re hanging on. This first half of the season, we’ve been hanging on. But we’ve done enough good things now to give us hope, and to have everyone start feeling a little bit better about where we’re headed.”
At the current pace, the Seahawks are headed right now is to an 8-8 season, and they’re halfway there. Their record (4-4) reflects what kind of a roller coaster year it has been thus far. But Holmgren wants more than that – and so do Seahawks fans, who had to put up with 8-8 marks in three of Dennis Erickson’s four years as head coach.
The win over the Raiders was certainly a good starting point for this year’s Seahawks, but they still haven’t proven they can follow it up.
The Seahawks are hoping this year will be different.
“In the past, there was a lot of talk about ‘me,’” Fauria said. “‘Why is this happening to me? Why can’t I do this?’ Now it’s we, and it’s us and it’s our. It’s corny. But good teams do corny things. They say corny things.”
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