Seahawks Need An Instant Dose Of Buccaneers

We saw some real progress from the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.

You didn’t see it? Well, check your schedule.

They’re one day closer to playing Tampa Bay.

Traditionally, the Bucs are a curative with the collective potency of penicillin, Oral Roberts’ fingertips and an abandoned stretch of Caribbean beach. The Seahawks are in need of nothing less and considerably more, Sunday’s 35-17 loss to Kansas City being only the most recent incrimination.

“This is the lowest of the lows right now,” said Seahawks linebacker Winston Moss.

Not so fast, Winston. As Groucho Marx once told Margaret Dumont or someone like her, it’s early yet.

Lose next week and this memory is going to loom like Everest.

The historical perspective is that Seattle is 0-3 for the first time since 1990, and that to find starts any worse, you have go back to the Seahawk cradle. The historical perspective is also irrelevant.

This team is 0-3 on its own merits or lack of same, and unlike in 1990 or even the expansion years isn’t dropping any broad hints that prosperity may be right around the corner.

“Hey, we’re the team that won six of its last eight last year,” harrumphed cornerback Corey Harris.

Yes?

Then what are they waiting for?

The same string of stiffs against which they generated their momentum a year ago? Sorry, fresh out. After next weekend’s date with Tampa Bay - which was untypically gnarly against Denver on Sunday night - the Seahawks get Green Bay (3-0), Miami (3-0), K.C. (3-0) again, San Diego, Houston and Minnesota (3-0). The records will change, and Seattle must hope its luck does, too.

But perhaps this is why the mantra you hear from the Seahawks locker room has a jailhouse harmony, as if the inmates were crossing out the days left in their sentences.

“They give us,” said quarterback Rick Mirer, presumably counseling against panic, “a lot of games to play.”

Until they get it right?

Well, maybe not that many games.

Speaking of quarterbacks, Seahawks coach Dennis Erickson seems to have doused the coals on that stewing debate here. He went with Mirer all the way against the Chiefs, though not because of any singular achievements on Mirer’s part. But until he threw a fourth-quarter interception in the end zone, Mirer didn’t especially screw it up, either - and even Erickson acquitted his quarterback on that one, blaming bad technology and communications.

Seahawks fans must hope, however, that losing by three touchdowns isn’t as close as their quarterback gets to vindication.

Mirer is in no position to bulldoze bigger alleys for his running backs, to remind Chris Warren how to run the ball with authority, to create some seams in the opposing secondary. Nor can he run out and pull up the pants of his own defenders, who spent a good portion of the afternoon getting undressed - once even by Chiefs cornerback Dale Carter, who did a Deion and lined up at wide receiver part-time. The third time he touched the ball he scorched Selwyn Jones for a 46-yard touchdown.

Bottom line, Mirer wasn’t going to win this game, Erickson decided.

“We knew against these guys that it was going to be hard, but we just had to continue to run, regardless if it was a one-yard gain or whatever,” Erickson said. “We wanted a game to stop their running game. We were going to have to do that defensively and try to get some turnovers.”

Too little, it turned out, and too late.

Eighty-four of Seattle’s 97 yards rushing came on its two touchdown drives, and virtually none of it from Warren. The K.C. defense apparently took a breather when his relief, Lamar Smith, was in the game - for he managed 73 yards.

“Sure we were (keying on Warren),” acknowledged defensive tackle Dan Saleaumua. “When you’ve got a guy like Chris Warren, you don’t just count him out. He’s been in the Pro Bowl how many times? He was our main concern today.”

As for the breaks, well, the Hawks waited until they were 18 points down before Steve Broussard broke off an 86-yard kickoff return - which netted Seattle no points. Later, defensive end Michael Sinclair - the only Hawk worth a highlight right now - forced a fumble that at least gave drama a fighting chance, only to see it snuffed when Mark Collins intercepted Mirer’s forced flip to Joey Galloway.

‘Boo,’ said the faithful - though with only 39,790 on hand, they may as well have whispered it.

Hey, you can’t have a quarterback controversy if nobody cares. What local passions Ken Behring’s business practices haven’t managed to kill, the Seahawks may finish off themselves. , DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review