Seahawks’ glaring problems go beyond injured receivers

Not to wish calamity on the Northwest’s Sunday passion, but it has been a little amusing to see the Seattle Seahawks live the life of an arenafootball2 franchise this week.

The get-another-guy-in-here life.

Coach Mike Holmgren gassed his punter and brought a new guy Tuesday, only because by National Football League rules he wasn’t allowed to do it during the second half of the Erie root canal last Sunday in Buffalo.

And that was just the start of the shuttle. Two youngsters, Jordan Kent and Justin Forsett, were nudged out of the picture so the Hawks could make room for Jordan Babineaux and Rocky Bernard, who were ready to come off double-secret probation. Holmgren sent general manager Tim Ruskell over to Goodwill to see what might be found on the wide receiver rack, since Nate Burleson – like every other veteran Seattle receiver – is doing the Black Knight bit from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

Holmgren: “Your arm’s off!”

Burleson: “I’ve had worse.”

Then first thing Saturday morning, Holmgren released receiver Samie Parker, who had barely been around long enough to have his parking validated, and signed Washington State rookie Michael Bumpus off the practice squad.

Bumpus was maybe seventh on the receiver depth chart during training camp, but had made a good impression on the coaching staff with his ability to grasp the offense, make tough catches and not get his legs broken.

So when the Seahawks tee it up at Qwest Field today against the San Francisco 49ers, their starting wideouts will have nine career receptions between them, with backup from a veteran who’s been in town for 10 minutes (Billy McMullen) and Bumpus, whose thrill at the prospect of playing in an NFL game is exceeded only by his relief at having his WSU eligibility run out before this season.

Surely there’s someone in af2 that Holmgren can claim from the recallable re-assignment list.

(Speaking of which, af2 rules allow a team to add an “emergency kicker” up to one hour before game time. But Holmgren won’t have to avail himself of that, since for the second week running he’s curiously opted to keep two place-kickers on his active roster. Maybe Olindo Mare runs a wicked hitch route.)

These injury travails – defenders Marcus Trufant and Lofa Tatupu will play today with casted hands, and starting guard Rob Sims is toast because of a pull of the pecs – and the wipeout in Buffalo have cast the Seahawks season in a light not seen since the days when rain used to force them inside their fungus-coated practice bubble at the old Kirkland headquarters.

“The doom and gloom theme – let’s hold off on that just a little bit,” Holmgren snipped on Wednesday. “Let’s see where we’re going with this.”

Well, it seems pretty clear where the Seahawks aren’t going with this, and that’s deep into January.

There are, of course, many leaves of the calendar yet to fall this football season, and the Seahawks do still play in the NFC West, which has not seen a team other than Seattle with a record better than 8-8 since 2003. Alas, outside the West, the schedule is pretty daunting, and now the pressure on the defense to hold disaster at bay until quarterback Matt Hasselbeck can locate a receiver he knows on something more than a “Hey you!” level is that much greater.

It is worth asking even this early in the Holmgren Farewell Tour whether the Seahawks have seen the window slam on the opportunity that no longer seemed so elusive after the Super Bowl loss to Pittsburgh – and whether they did all they could to exploit it.

The upgrades they have made to their talent on the defensive side of the ball the past couple of seasons skew the argument to “yes.” The general attrition on the offense suggests “no.”

This is not simply about an improbable plague of injuries at receiver. Though undeniably respectable, the stable of veterans the Seahawks had assembled at that position do not especially inspire fear and dread as game-breakers – which is to say, while they don’t have Terrell Owens-type baggage, they don’t have T.O.’s cachet, either. The deterioration of the running game has been all too apparent; this year’s three-headed approach will, if nothing else, allow the boos that used to rain down on Shaun Alexander to be diffused. The line spent two years reeling from the Steve Hutchinson fiasco. Center Chris Spencer has, to this point, been an immense disappointment. Having to fill at guard with Pork Chop Womack is hardly a step forward.

But perhaps their greatest failure has been their inability to find a backup to Hasselbeck reliable enough to allow them to get Seneca Wallace on the field on a regular basis as a receiver, runner or returner. That a player – and potential playmaker – with his skills and explosiveness has been allowed to wither holding a clipboard for the better part of five seasons is almost criminal.

And never more so than during get-another-guy-in-here week.