John Blanchette: Hawks count on Trufant

KIRKLAND – There is much to be said for baseball’s preseason, when there is a daily box score to confirm who’s tearing it up, even if it’s against Triple-A pitching.

Not so much in the National Football League. Starters can be out of the first couple of exhibition games after the opening series. A month might transpire between the dawn of training camp and when a player sees significant scrimmage time, leaving any evaluation to the numbing pronouncements from staff that someone is “looking good” or “has some work to do.” Which might mean he has or hasn’t tripped over a yard marker yet.

But this much is gospel: Marcus Trufant is having a hell of a camp.

There is something to illustrate it nearly every day here at Seattle Seahawks headquarters. On Thursday, the fifth-year cornerback broke up three passes in a four-play sequence. A couple of days earlier, receiver Nate Burleson had run a short curl and seemed to have completely shielded the pass arriving from quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, only to see Trufant somehow snake both hands in for an interception. At an open-to-the-public practice at Husky Stadium, he made a spectacular takeaway from split end D.J. Hackett.

“That was an amazing play,” marveled Hasselbeck. “That was an all-out blitz and he was one-on-one with no help inside or outside. His only help was the sideline. Hack is taller, bigger and stronger.”

But March batting averages often are exposed as so much hot air once transported from the desert to the Rust Belt. And practice picks aren’t what get a football player to the Pro Bowl.

And the thinking is, it’s about time Marcus Trufant made that a destination.

Of course, that thinking also seems to suggest that he’s been a disappointment, which is hardly the case. But such are the in-betweens upon which Trufant’s NFL career has been built.

It almost feels like he was a rookie just yesterday, and now here he is Old Man Defense – 62 starts to his name, almost twice as many as any other Seahawk on that side of the ball. His Washington State pedigree stamps him as an underdog – and, after all, the Cougars had to beat out Boise State for his services, and that was well before the Broncos were football relevant. Yet he was the 11th pick of the 2003 draft – and other than quarterbacks, no Cougar has ever gone higher.

So is he overdue for greatness or has he already overachieved? Does his steadiness magnify the bad beats? Is the jury still out, or is it absurd to think one needs to be impaneled?

What, in fact, is Tru’s value?

“Marcus is the steadiest player we’ve had since I have been here,” insisted coach Mike Holmgren last week. “That’s one position I do not worry about. Where he plays, I do not worry about too much.”

Still, it is a new Tru in camp these days, or a new-old Tru, or something. For starters, his braids and his Afro are gone.

“It was time for a new look,” he said. “I’ve had long hair for 4 1/2, going on my fifth season in the league and I thought it was time for a change. It was long, crazy. I was tired of it. I wore my Afro the other day and it was just out of control.”

So did he make a locker room ceremony of it?

“Not a ceremony, but the guys with bald heads were walking around with my hair on their heads,” he laughed. “I was crying on the inside a little bit, but it had to go.”

He is also back playing at left corner. Leading with his right shoulder on tackles against the run had led to surgeries after each of his first two seasons and a move to the right side, but it’s acknowledged that the top-flight corners in the league play on the left – and it’s obvious that with second-year man Kelly Jennings and rookie Josh Wilson on the other side, that’s where Trufant can most help the Seahawks.

“It’s not that big of a difference, really,” Trufant said. “The footwork’s a little different, and you may get a little different look from the offense as far as scheme. But you’re going to face a good receiver no matter what. It’s just that most quarterbacks are right-handed, so you may get a few more balls.”

And he looks to be re-invigorated by the aggressive approach of new defensive backs coach Jim Mora. Before a high ankle sprain ended his 2006 season after 15 games, Trufant seemed to have allowed more big completions than in any of his first three years, or at the least wasn’t having the kind of impact the Hawks expected from a former first-round pick.

“The one thing we have stressed with him was the play right at the end of the ball,” Holmgren said. “He has been victimized by that a little bit over the years and in this camp clearly, if you have been watching it the whole time, he makes plays now.”

And playmakers play in the Pro Bowl. That much is gospel.