Seattle laid a proverbial egg in Buffalo during Sunday's 34-10 drubbing by the relatively unheralded Bills.
Ignoring everything that went wrong, which, let's face it, is a very long list, I am now choosing to focus on the future and next Sunday's week 2 home opener against the San Francisco 49ers. Rather than concerning myself with dropped passes, broken special teams coverages, and a swiss cheese offensive line, I am more interested with how this team responds to the thrashing they received at the hands of a Buffalo squad that is terribly underrated, in my opinion. In 2005, Seattle lost its season opener to the Jacksonville Jaguars, and they did it in ugly fashion with five total turnovers and untimely penalties. They later went on to finish 13-3 (with a beautiful 10-game winning streak) and make the franchise's first Super Bowl appearance. With that in mind, an opening-week road loss to a decent team is no reason to lose sleep this week, and here is why...
1) Mike Holmgren-led teams usually seem to bounce back from poor performances with superb ones, and nothing I have seen from either Seattle or San Francisco has convinced me that next weekend's game will buck that trend
2) Matt Hasselbeck looked about as bad as ever, and he still managed to complete 17 passes for 190 yards. Once the cobwebs are fully shaken, he will pick up where he left off in 2005 or 2007 - with efficiency, poise, and leadership
3) Dropped passes are often a matter of "jitters" with younger players like Logan Payne, Courtney Taylor, Jordan Kent, et al. The dropsies didn't seem to affect John Carlson, the rookie TE from Notre Dame, which tells me that the WR corps likely felt a great deal of pressure to perform this week without having their #1 or #2 guys available to play
4) Deion Branch will return to play in the home opener, I am convinced of it. He's not a great receiver, but he has sure hands and he's going to be able to take some pressure off Hasselbeck
5) 10 wins will win the NFC West, and although now Seattle must go 10-5 the rest of the way to get to the double-digit mark in the "W" column for 2008, their matchup against New England now looks completely winnable with the Patriots' All-Universe QB Tom Brady on the sideline with his knee injury and pending surgery
Well, there's five reasons why it's not yet time to worry about this club. Yes, they looked God-awful yesterday, but so did a lot of other NFL teams that hyave their sights set on getting deep into the postseason.
No matter how ugly the loss was, it can only be counted as ONE - just as with an ugly win or a blowout, a win is a win is a win.
Time to look forward to the 49ers coming to town and getting their dose of the 12th Man!
I'm just your average sports nut, I suppose. Of course I'm a bit of a homer - the Mariners, Seahawks, and Huskies are my teams - but I stick with my boys down the stretch, through thick and thin.
What can the Mariners do to rebound from their worst season in twent years? Will Erik Bedard recover in time for the 2009 season? Ryan Rowland-Smith and Brandon Morrow look to make the transition from the bullpen to the starting rotation, so can they combine with Felix to create a young and effective 1-2-3 tandem? How will the M's new front office guru fare - will Chuckie and Howie be able to stay "hands off" long enough for the new VP/GM to accomplish anything positive? Can the Seahawks recover from their early-season woes and rebound for a fifth straight NFC West title? How will the team handle the transition from Mike Holmgren's regime to the ways of Jim Mora Jr? Can the Hawks' defense stop anyone? Can the offense put up more than 200 yards?
Any of you folks out there interested in healthy and creative debate about anything, feel free to speak up!
