Seahawks Crash At Home Against Atlanta, 34-18

Frustration.

There is no better word for it. Seattle has played some absolutely wonderful football, getting hopes and expectations up that the Seahawks are improving. But Seattle has played some truly horrendous football, crushing those hopes and frustrating those expectations into a bitter powder that tastes nothing like the Cherry Kool-Aid I was promised.

As with all things in life, there is a tendency to look for the reason for the bad while heaping praise on the good. In football, the spotlight shines brightest on the quarterback position. This is rightfully so since it is the position that manages the game, handles the ball and gets the most money.

Unfortunately, football isn’t black-and-white like that. You can’t just claim it’s the quarterback that is the problem—like moving Tom Brady or Peyton Manning to Seattle would fix everything. While the Seahawks would definitely be better, and have a better record, with better quarterback play, not every mistake that happens falls directly on the quarterback’s shoulders.

Play of the Game:

If you watched the game, or saw the highlights, you saw this play as a prime example of that: Matt Hasselbeck was sacked in the end zone and then fumbled the ball, which was recovered by Atlanta defensive lineman Jonathon Babineaux for a Falcons touchdown.

It would be very easy to boo Hasselbeck here, and many of my fellow "12th Men" did, but if you know anything about football, you could see the chain of events that led up to it.

On the play before the fumble, Atlanta punted to Seattle. Returner Leon Washington watched the ball hit next to him at the 20 yard line instead of catching it. Washington said later that he thought the ball was going out of bounds. Instead, the ball rolled down to the 4 yard line, pinning the Seattle offense deep in its own territory.

On the fumble play, Seattle’s offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates called for a play action pass, rolling Hasselbeck to his right after faking the hand off left. This was a horrible play call from the field positioning stand point. Why would you call for a very slow developing play that has your QB rolling to the right when you know your offensive line hasn’t been blocking very well, your QB has a broken left hand and you are on your own 4 yard line?

So there are two boneheaded mistakes right there. Hasselbeck couldn’t let the mistakes end there though. When he was trying to avoid the sack by Jamaal Anderson, Hasselbeck tried to fight off Anderson rather than taking the sack and the safety or throwing the ball away. By trying to fend off Anderson, Hasselbeck was careless with the ball, especially knowing he couldn’t grip the ball with his broken left hand.

Article Author: Russ Evenhuis

I am a writer in a mid-life crisis. My passions are Seahawks football, triathlons, rugby, sports in general, Guinness, reading, writing, television, music, computers, family, and movies.

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