Defensive unit stealing show in Seattle
SEATTLE – It is a world turned upside down.
The Seattle Seahawks have scored three touchdowns this NFL season. The offense from Tiffany’s looks more like costume jewelry shoplifted from the dollar store. The $47 million arm just produced a quarterback rating of 54 – a damned dismal rate of return, except that the Seahawks just spent another $39 million on a wide receiver and wouldn’t let him out of the garage Sunday. Not that owner Paul Allen doesn’t have the money to burn, but he was spotted dialing Matthew Lesko’s toll-free number on Sunday.
Now, then. The Seahawks have surrendered exactly one touchdown this NFL season. And Lofa Tatupu was hot when it happened Sunday.
“Upset,” he said. “Furious. Mad at myself, wondering if there was something I could have done better. Mad for the defense.”
Mad. One touchdown.
The Seahawks are off to a 2-0 start in their intended march back to the Super Bowl, and it’s possible that on any given upcoming Sunday they’ll commit some actual entertainment. The 21-10 smothering of the too-presumptuous-for-their-britches Arizona Cardinals at Qwest Field was an upgrade from the grim dance in Detroit the week before, certainly, with the promise of better to come. Besides, an old football sage said the other day that there’s no such thing as an ugly win, which is probably what Anna Nicole Smith was muttering in between “I” and “do.”
“We look like a good second-week (offense) instead of one that’s about to walk into the Super Bowl,” offered running back Shaun Alexander. “But a good second-week offense will make you 2-0.”
Except they wouldn’t be 2-0 without a defense that seems to be well ahead of that curve – but, of course, the pitchers are always ahead of the hitters early in spring training, too.
Little mythology has ever sprouted up around defense in this little acre of the NFL. Oh, there have been good players – one of them, Cortez Kennedy, was installed in the club’s ring of honor on Sunday (and charmingly thanked his mother “for raising such a good kid”).
But there’s been no, well, Steel Curtain. Frankly, there has never even been a Sound Barrier.
There may be one in the making, however.
“They’re going to be a team,” Alexander said of the defense, “that no longer is going to take the back seat to our offense.”
Shaun, right now defense is driving the car.
Yes, the offense got the Seahawks a helpful 14-0 head start on the Cardinals, though it mostly amounted to receiver Darrell Jackson twice getting behind Arizona’s Adrian Wilson and Robert Tate. But at that point, the go-pedal was disengaged, with three of the next six possessions ending in negative yardage.
Which means the other unit had to be doing something right.
“We have two minutes left in the first half and we look up at the board (above the south end zone) and they have 25 total yards,” said Tatupu. “We know we’re not supposed to be looking up there, but we see it. We take pride in it.”
No reason they shouldn’t. In week one, the Cardinals scored more points than any other NFL team – yes, against the 49ers, but they still count. Plus the Cardinals have the still-operational wing of Kurt Warner, the newly acquired 9,000-yard legs of Edgerrin James and some excellent young receivers in Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin and Bryant Johnson.
“But as good as their skill positions are, their offensive line was going to struggle in pass pro,” said Seahawks defensive end Bryce Fisher. “We felt we could get to the quarterback and Kurt makes their whole offense go.”
And mostly it didn’t. Seattle sacked Warner five times – now seven different Seahawks have sacks this season – and James had all of 14 yards at halftime. The defense did give up that third quarter touchdown, but it also bailed out the offense after Hasselbeck threw his second pick – Tatupu falling on Adam Bergan’s fumble that Kelly Herndon had knocked loose. Three other turnovers were wiped out by Seattle penalties or this would have been a blowout.
The most remarkable aspect of Seattle’s Super Bowl team was that the defense had plugged in eight new starters to start the season – and three more permanent fill-ins along the way. Another – linebacker Julian Peterson – has joined up this year, but now the group gives off a veteran, savvy air beyond its years.
“We’ll find out,” said Fisher. “If we’re still holding people to six, seven, eight points a game 10 weeks from now, then you can really talk about it. After the first couple of weeks, you don’t know how good anybody is.”
Is there a standard worth aspiring to?
“Anyone we’re behind,” said Tatupu, referencing the points-per-game defensive rankings. “That’s how I measure it. We can get a lot better. We gave up 10 points – that’s 10 too many.
“We look at other defenses and say that’s what we want to be like, but I’m too proud to give that out. There are teams we’re watching and say, ‘Just look at the way they get to the ball and make hits and turn the ball over.’ They dictate to the offense what they want to do. That’s what we want to be like.”
And if they get there?
“We could be one of those ‘best teams ever,’ ” said Alexander. “It’s our defense that allows us to even think like that.”
Mad. Madder. Madness.