Back to the pass

KIRKLAND, Wash. – Mike Holmgren will face the franchise that brought him into the NFL on Monday.

He plans to write his past into the play sheet he holds, too.

He’s going back to his roots, he said this week, hoping a few more passes against San Francisco is the way to get the Seahawks off that treadmill that’s had them running in place for the first half of the season.

So that means more passes to the tight end, right? Like Brent Jones, who caught 56 passes one season as a tight end when Holmgren was offensive coordinator in San Francisco. Oh, wait. Seattle didn’t complete a single pass to a tight end in Cleveland last Sunday, and Marcus Pollard hasn’t played the past two games and is coming back from arthroscopic knee surgery.

OK. So Holmgren must be planning to throw to the running backs, then. Like the way the 49ers’ Tom Rathman caught 73 passes Holmgren’s first year as coordinator. Except Mack Strong is the only Seattle back to catch more than four passes in a game since the 2005 season began, and he’s coaching now.

So where is the ball going?

“Good question,” Holmgren said. “I don’t know how that’s going to turn out, to be honest.”

The Seahawks’ offense changed over the past few years, trampling opponents on the ground instead of trumping them in the air. Holmgren called plays to accentuate his veteran offensive line and a running back with eyes for the big run and a nose for the end zone.

Shaun Alexander liked running out of the I-formation to give him room to get a view of the defense, so Holmgren adjusted accordingly.

“Now, the team has changed,” Holmgren said.

The Seahawks spent the past eight weeks trying to establish a running game.

But with Alexander sub-par, all that effort and emphasis hasn’t taken them anywhere at all except to a 4-4 record and a one-game lead in the worst division in football.

Hence, back to the pass.