It beats drawing plays in the dirt

DETROIT – For obvious reasons, the script is a closely guarded secret.

“I’d rather not talk about that,” Seahawks offensive coordinator Gil Haskell said. “That’s a serious part of all this. I’ll say this: It’s done all week. You think about it all week long. You have certain plays in practice that you know could be in the first 15 and you make sure you cover them.”

While Seattle’s first 15 plays are not for public consumption, the impact of the script is clear. The Seahawks were 7-1 in the regular season when they scored first; Pittsburgh was 8-1. In 39 Super Bowls, the winning team has scored first 26 times, even though it’s been the opposite three of the last four years.

Of course, those points weren’t necessarily scored within the first 15 plays, but there’s no denying the correlation between a quick start and victory.

Head coach Mike Holmgren, who collaborates with Haskell on the script, tries to use the plays to help quarterback Matt Hasselbeck find his rhythm. In two previous Super Bowls as a head coach, Holmgren scripted plays for Green Bay’s Brett Favre, who passed for 252 yards in a loss to Denver and 246 yards in a victory over New England.

“Certainly at the beginning of the game there is some counterpunching going on, on both sides,” Holmgren said. “You want to see how they’re going to react to a motion or a formation or a personnel grouping, knowing that they’re probably going to change during the game. I’ve always felt if the quarterback can get a couple of completions early, it loosens him up and makes him relaxed.

“They are all excited and our quarterbacks are no different. If I have to weigh it, I probably weigh on getting the quarterback feeling good about how things are going.”

Seattle has scored in the first quarter in 12 of its last 16 games, including the playoffs. Hasselbeck has little input on the script, but it hardly matters.

“Sometimes they might ask me what I like or see,” he said, “but it’s kind of at the point where if I give them something I like it’s already on their page.”

Holmgren’s roots in scripting plays come from his background as an assistant under former San Francisco coach Bill Walsh.

“A lot of teams do it. Some script more, some less,” quarterbacks coach Jim Zorn said. “Gil’s the instigator behind it, and the way it is put together is quite private to Gil and Mike. It’s very religious in how it’s done and somewhat religious in how it’s followed. Matt can interject here and there.”