Seahawks Hand Over A Victory Special Teams Errors, Turnovers Help New Orleans Win In Overtime

In a season in which quarterback Warren Moon is putting up Pro Bowl numbers in his 40s and the Seattle Seahawks have one of the top 10 defenses in the NFL, the “Whole New Ballgame” Seahawks did the impossible Sunday.

They found a way to trump the NFL’s turnover champion New Orleans Saints, who, at 38 and counting, will challenge the NFL record of 63.

To counter the Saints’ five turnovers during a 20-17 overtime loss Sunday in the Superdome, the Seahawks gave four turnovers back, allowed a blocked punt, missed two field goals, did a poor job of tackling on special teams and dropped seven passes.

Moon, who led the Seahawks from behind in the final 2 minutes to force overtime, made the mistake of throwing an interception to linebacker Winfred Tubbs on the first play of overtime. Doug Brien then entered to give the Saints their fourth victory with a 38-yard field goal, 14 seconds into the extra period.

“Well, gang, I’ll tell you, I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” said Saints coach Mike Ditka, who replaced starting quarterback Heath Shuler with former University of Idaho star Doug Nussmeier before the overtime. “Things happened I couldn’t explain.”

Now, instead of going into next Sunday’s Kingdome showdown against Kansas City with a chance to move into second place in the AFC West, the Seahawks (6-5) dropped two games behind the Chiefs and could be on the verge of dropping out of the playoff chase.

Already down five injured starters and punter Rick Tuten, the Seahawks will be without wide receiver Brian Blades, who broke his left hand and may be out for the rest of the season.

The sad part of the loss is that former Seahawks defensive tackle Glenn Montgomery, suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease, spent the first half on the sideline and even went to one of his Popeye’s fast-food franchises to bring them chicken.

Many of the players weren’t into eating after their most frustrating loss of the season.

“We needed this victory,” said defensive tackle Sam Adams, whose two sacks, one forced fumble and five tackles went to waste. “We are a better team than this. We have a tough road ahead of us. This season is ridiculous.”

So was this game. The Seattle defense couldn’t play any better. Minus Cortez Kennedy and Bennie Blades, the Seahawks limited the Saints to 173 yards of total offense. Free safety Darryl Williams intercepted two of Shuler’s passes. Seven of 11 plays when the Saints were within two yards of a first down, the Seahawks stopped them.

But those weeks of getting by with inferior efforts by the special teams finally caught up to the Seahawks. Rookie Kyle Richardson, filling in for Tuten, mishandled one punt snap and had another one blocked, leading to 10 points for the Saints.

Richardson also was off just enough on his handling of place-kick snaps that reliable Todd Peterson missed field goals of 33 and 45 yards, the last coming with 19 seconds left in regulation.

“I don’t think he was too happy,” Richardson said of Peterson’s evaluation of the holds. After the game, Peterson took the blame but would not comment on the specifics of the problems on field goal mechanics.

Coach Dennis Erickson was more blunt.

“Obviously, our kicking game was not very good,” Erickson said. “We missed two field goals. You get a punt blocked. That’s inexcusable.”

“Hopefully, this loss won’t come back to get us,” wide receiver Joey Galloway said. “In the past couple years, we’ve done that, lost games that kept us from going where we needed to be.”