Seahawks fail in prime time

SEATTLE – Three-and-a-half minutes into Sunday night’s nationally-televised game at Qwest Field, an overhead NBC camera came crashing to the turf and just missed Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck.

The metaphor wasn’t lost on the Seahawks.

“It just wasn’t our night, I guess,” Hasselbeck quipped with a shrug after Sunday’s 28-17 loss to the New Orleans Saints.

And, with the way things have been going as of late, looks like it might not be their season, either.

The Seahawks were on the wrong end of a one-sided loss for the second consecutive week – the game was worse than even the 11-point margin could indicate – and can’t seem to be running out of answers.

“Frustrating, confusing and disappointing,” running back Shaun Alexander said in summing up the latest loss. “Anytime you play in a game like that where you can take over the lead in your division, and you don’t get it done, it’s rough.”

Seattle (3-3) saw its record drop to .500 for the first time since Week 4 of the 2005 season, failing to pull away from Arizona for the NFC West lead. The Seahawks have been outscored 49-17 in their past two games and look less and less like a Super Bowl contender every week.

“It’s nothing I can put my finger on,” defensive end Patrick Kerney said. “We’ve just got to be able come back from the losses this week.

While the Saints (1-4) broke out of their month-long slump Sunday night, the Seahawks continued quite a draught of their own. After falling behind 21-0, Seattle saw 27 minutes and 44 seconds of game clock expire before it finally put points on the board with a Hasselbeck-to-Ben Obomanu touchdown pass late in the second quarter. That marked the first points the Seahawks had scored this month and ended a scoreless draught that spanned 102 minutes and 23 seconds – going back to the fourth quarter of a Sept. 30 win over San Francisco.

But that touchdown proved to be one of the rare clovers in an evening of cow dung.

The Saints had their highest point total of the season, scoring more first-half points (28) than they had in their previous four games combined (23). New Orleans piled 258 of its 367 total yards in the first half, taking a 28-10 lead at the break.

The Saints converted 7 of 14 third downs, but had one of their most impressive stretches without needing to. New Orleans scored 21 points in the second quarter, yet the only time the Saints had a third down during that two-and-a-half-series stretch was on the final offensive play: a 2-yard touchdown pass.

The game was all but over at halftime, although the Seahawks did try to make a run in the second half. Seattle had 232 of its 425 yards after halftime, and some long passes helped Hasselbeck throw for 362 yards.

While that marked just his second 300-yard game since 2004, the numbers were as misleading as the final score.

“Being down 21-0 is really not the way you want to start a game,” Hasselbeck said.

The night got off to an appropriate start when new long snapper Boone Stutz, who was brought in last week to replace veteran Derek Rackley, short-hopped one to punter Ryan Plackemeier. The ball bounced back to the Seattle 5-yard line before Pierre Thomas scooped it up and fell into the end zone for a touchdown.

In retrospect, that was probably the least painful of the Saints’ touchdowns. New Orleans went on long drives to score on three consecutive possessions in the late first and second quarters. Only Obomanu’s touchdown reception and Josh Brown’s 52-yard field goal just before halftime kept the Seahawks in any kind of striking distance, trailing 28-10 at the half.

Along the way, the first half featured one of the strangest moments in Qwest Field history. As the players were milling around following a Saints timeout with 11:24 left in the first quarter, an overhead camera supported by long cables that extended from one end of the stadium to the other suddenly crashed down on the field.

Hasselbeck was only a yard or two away from the fallen machinery, and the game was delayed for 10 minutes while game officials decided to allow it to remain suspended away from the field.

“That’s kind of a scary thing,” coach Mike Holmgren said afterward.

Throughout the game, the Qwest Field fans openly booed their team – particularly when running back Shaun Alexander touched the ball.

Alexander had just 35 yards on 14 carries and was held without a touchdown for the fourth consecutive week, marking the longest draught of his eight-year NFL career.

“I just think they’re feeling the same thing we’re all feeling,” Alexander said of the verbal raspberries. “They want the four-touchdown games and the 200-yard games. We all want that, too. You can’t blame them.”

Through six games, the 2007 Seahawks have fallen short of fan expectations, media expectations and their own expectations. But they haven’t written off this season yet.

“It’s similar to being down 21-0, and then near the end of the game you’re still in it,” Hasselbeck said of the Seahawks’ 3-3 start. “Despite your failures, and despite the screwups that you had, it’s not final. We’ve had a lot of failures, and a lot of missed opportunities, but it’s not final. We’re still in (the hunt for a division title).”