CHICAGO – The six long weeks the Seahawks spent without Shaun Alexander still hang heavy on the hands of quarterback Matt Hasselbeck. As 27 touchdowns and 1,860 Alexander rushing yards in 2005 have shrunk to seven touchdowns and 896, Seattle, which ran 51 percent of the time on the way to the Super Bowl, is throwing more and winning less.
Last week, when the Seahawks turned to Alexander to run out the clock against Dallas, it instead took Jordan Babineaux running down Tony Romo on a botched extra point to get Seattle to today’s divisional playoff game here. Not the way Coach Mike Holmgren drew it up. And not the way the 10-7 Seahawks are going to get past the 13-3 Bears, either.
Hasselbeck missed four games and Deion Branch, acquired in a September trade, missed Tom Brady obviously, while the Seahawks were also suffering nine-game absences of wideout Darrell Jackson and slot receiver Bobby Engram. Tight end Jerramy Stevens was lost for five games and the Seahawks, despite the off-season signing of wide receiver Nate Burleson, wound up averaging seven fewer points than last season, when they won 13 regular-season games by scoring more than anybody in the league.
“There are three or four plays every game where Deion does something that, because he hasn’t been with us very long, I wish he had done something else,” coach Mike Holmgren said this week. “It might be a little, subtle thing.
“We’re kind of going through it now, making an error here and there.”
Spoken like a man who will run out of season today before he runs out of patience. But with all Seahawk hands back on deck today, maybe not.
The Chicago defense that intercepted Hasselbeck three times in a 37-6 Oct. 1 win here, that only once in the first six games gave up a 100-yard rushing game, suffered six of them after losing Pro Bowl safety Mike Brown. With Pro Bowl defensive tackle Tommie Harris out, too, these Monsters of the Midway have been looking increasingly cute and cuddly, especially with interception-prone quarterback Rex Grossman forcing the defense onto short fields.
If the Bears win convincingly today, it will be because they overran the Seahawks’ small defensive line once more. Also because Holmgren’s West Coast passing attack was neutralized by the quick drops of linebackers Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs.
A two-touchdown lifeline between Hasselbeck and Stevens helped save Seattle last week, but over the middle is not an option Urlacher generally allows. So, the Seahawks have to run more often and better. And Branch has to start earning the contract the Patriots refused to give him, never mind what he gave them repeatedly during Januarys.
Branch had his best game (seven receptions for 113 yards) in San Francisco in Week 11, when Seneca Wallace was the quarterback, but Hasselbeck returned the following week and the struggle, which saw the Seahawks drop three of their final four games, continued.
“It’s an ongoing process, and it does take time,” Branch said. “It’s little things, and Matt and I just have to keep working at it.”
As the offense sputtered against Dallas and Jackson, who was leading the NFL in touchdown passes when he left the lineup on Dec. 10, came out again in the third quarter, Hasselbeck, still showing effects of his knee problem, turned back to what he knows best – Engram.
“They were my better throws,” Hasselbeck said. “I have to believe it is just because of me trusting him and knowing exactly what he is going to do.”
Jackson is back today, giving Hasselbeck one more weapon in what has become, for lack of continuity, a lost Seattle arsenal. It’s not as big as Tank Johnson’s home arsenal, of course, but still plenty to make this interesting if Hasselbeck, harassed mercilessly by Harris in October, gets time to find a good offense that has almost become frozen in time.
PREDICTION
Bears are missing Tommie Harris and Mike Brown from the defense that dominated Seattle, 37-6, at Solder Field in October. But the all-out commitment required by the Seahawks’ 22nd-ranked run defense to stopping Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson will make Seattle, with three injured corners, more vulnerable to the pass, even for Rex Grossman.
BEARS 21, SEAHAWKS 17