Seahawks starter at QB settled
Whitehurst, Losman battle for No. 2 spot
RENTON, Wash. – When the starting quarterback misses 11 games the past two seasons, turns 35 next month and has a history of back and oblique injuries, it’s prudent to have a reliable backup on the roster.
At great expense, the Seahawks traded for Charlie Whitehurst, a third-string signal caller in San Diego, to push Matt Hasselbeck for the starting job.
Seattle also brought in former Buffalo Bills standout J.P. Losman to create even more competition at a position that Hasselbeck has held since 2001.
After a week of training camp, two things are obvious:
• Hasselbeck, who enters his 13th season and is a free agent after the 2010 season, isn’t ready to relinquish the starting job.
• And the real competition is at the No. 2 spot.
“Obviously Matt is the starting quarterback here and I think everybody knows that,” Whitehurst said. “Aside from Matt, it’s go out and just compete every day.”
At 6 feet 5, 225 pounds, Whitehurst is surprisingly mobile and seems comfortable outside the pocket while the 6-2, 217-pound Losman still has a rocket arm that made him a 2004 first-round pick.
Whitehurst, a third-round choice out of Clemson in 2006, languished on the San Diego bench behind Philip Rivers and Billy Volek for the past four seasons.
He played in just two regular-season games without attempting a pass and did most of his work in the exhibition season, throwing five touchdown passes, seven interceptions and compiling a 61.5 passer rating in four exhibition seasons.
Despite the lack of production, the Seahawks swapped second-round picks and gave up an undisclosed pick to San Diego for the 28-year-old Whitehurst. They also gave him a two-year, $10 million contract.
“That’s nice to be wanted,” Whitehurst said. “It’s a confidence thing. You’d be lying to say that when somebody wants you and you want to go there. … You want to go perform. You don’t want to let people down.”
If Whitehurst is a blank canvas, then Losman is an unappreciated work of art.
The former No. 22 overall pick from Tulane spent five years in Buffalo and passed for 3,051 yards in ’06 with the Bills.
Losman showed promise, but he didn’t win enough games (10-23 record as a starter), committed too many turnovers (34 interceptions and 34 fumbles) and held the ball too long (103 sacks).
Losman also had four different offensive coordinators in Buffalo, three of whom had never held the job before (Tom Clements, Steve Fairchild and Turk Schonert).
“The dust has cleared and settled,” Losman said. “You kind of realized what happened. You reevaluate the situation. What could you have done better? Where were you screwed on? What was in your control? What was out of out of your control? Those types of things.”
Losman declined to go into detail about Buffalo. He said he needed to take a step back to move forward, which might explain why he chose to play in the United Football League last year.
Losman, 29, understands he’s taken an unusual path to the Seahawks and said experience has taught him to appreciate his second chance in the NFL.
“What I’ve learned is to just worry about what I can control,” he said. “Everything else is out of my hands. I can control my feet. I can control my arm. I can control my reads. I can control how much I master the offense. I can control the leadership qualities that I bring.
“Everything else that happens after that, I have zero control. Maybe I wasted too much time concentrating on outside things.”