No Hiding Fact On-Field Struggles Are Killing Mirer

Sometimes after games, interviews deteriorate in a predictable direction - becoming a catechism of repeated excuses that are taken as truths by virtue of their ceaseless repetition.

It makes you wish you had something that would force the players and coaches to unload their raw and unvarnished feelings about how the game really evolved.

Something like that golden lasso that Wonder Woman used to throw around suspects.

She’d whip that thing around somebody, some mysterious music would play - dinkle-dinkle-dinkle - and the person would immediately spill the whole truth and nothing but.

Over the past couple weeks, it would have been good to sling that lasso around Seattle Seahawks coach Dennis Erickson, who has seen his hopes for a successful rookie season in the NFL sluice down the tubes.

He’s been delicate and tactful in his assessment of all players, including quarterback Rick Mirer, whom he says holds the future of the franchise, although Mirer was sent to the bench this week.

With the lasso around him, though, he’d probably admit that the third-year quarterback seems absolutely - and surprisingly - lost in what should be an excellent passing attack for him.

He’d probably add that running back Chris Warren has been exceptional rushing, but not nearly as versatile as expected, leaving the Hawks to largely scrap his use in pass patterns.

He might add that players like Brian Blades, Cortez Kennedy, Sam Adams and Joey Galloway have shown great flashes, but inexplicably slipped into competitive comas on occasion.

That the special teams are only ghosts of the squads that Rusty Tillman used to coach, and that although safety Eugene Robinson remains a spiritual leader of the team, he has not made a single interception or pass defense in seven games.

Some of the players after Sunday’s compellingly wretched loss to Arizona, though, wouldn’t speak at all - not truth, not cliche, not howdy-do.

“Nope,” Warren said when asked to comment on his game, which included 127 yards of rushing, but also culpability in two lost fumbles.

“Get outta my way,” was all Hawks defensive end Brent Williams had to say to media inquiries.

And when Erickson finished giving his anguished answers to the press, he retreated to the coaches’ dressing room and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the hinges.

That was the atmosphere of the Seahawks locker room - like a giant exposed nerve.

Within this environment on Sunday, one player - Mirer - was painfully honest and forthcoming about his feelings. Without a golden lasso in sight.

After an embarrassing week when his shortcomings became headline fodder, Mirer briefly replaced John Friesz in the lineup and had his only two passes intercepted.

“I didn’t think it could get worse,” Mirer said. “But it did.”

Friesz returned after getting an injection to help ease the pain of an injured shoulder, and did reasonably well against the Cardinals’ blood-thirsty blitzes.

His two interceptions came because one back tipped the ball to the Cardinals and one receiver stopped running his route after the ball was in the air.

And while Mirer has absolutely no anti-Friesz sentiments, he’s in obvious pain.

“I don’t know what I’m doing so wrong that it’s made everything I do blow up the way it’s been,” Mirer said. “Hopefully, this (excrement) will end sometime soon.

“Nobody could walk out of here in my shoes and feel like there is nothing to worry about and everything’s going to be all right and I’m happy,” Mirer said. “Because it’s not all right, and I’m not happy.”

Another component must be factored into Mirer’s situation, and that’s the fact that the Seahawks must come up with a bonus of more than $3 million in December to activate the final two years of his contract.

Do they want to spend that much on someone who has the obvious potential, but has not absolutely proven that worth?

Or does Mirer, himself, want to test the waters as a restricted free agent?

“That’s my right,” Mirer said. “But that’s not what I want. I don’t want any of this to be happening, but the damage that has happened, has happened. I want nothing more than for this to work right.”

So does Friesz, who could take no solace in solid statistics.

“That doesn’t matter; I won’t be reading the paper tomorrow to see my stats,” the Idaho grad said. “I’ve had exciting numbers in the past and that’s all fine and dandy, but who cares? We didn’t win.

“I want to continue playing and (winning) is the thing that’s going to let me continue to let me play. That’s the bottom line, that’s all that matters right now.”

Both can’t be the starting quarterback.

There’s only one ball out there, and Mirer has all too frequently thrown it to the wrong team.

“What I know is that football is no fun like this,” Mirer said. “It hurts, it just really hurts.”

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Dave Boling The Spokesman-Review