Seahawks-Steelers

Living in L.A., I get five Seahawks on network TV, including Sunday and Monday night games. The Steelers game was the first one I could watch from my living room. It would have been nice if the 'hawks had woken up for the game.

Going into the game, my bets were on Pittsburgh to win. They were coming off their first loss of the season, playing the national Fox game at home, against a Seahawks team that never seems to play well in the eastern time zone. The Seahawks surely burned through a ton of emotion with their victory over the 49ers, so I was half-expecting a flat performance. Then I heard the Steelers would be missing some of their top defensive starters, I figured that would be enough to give the Seahawks a fighting chance.

Well, that didn't happen. Here are my thoughts on the game:

Hasslebeck was not accurate like he had been in previous games. The Steelers had a great game plan to counter, and Matt needed to be dead-on to beat the coverage. He wasn't. His performance doesn't have me worried, though. He lost Deion Branch at some point, and Burleson and Obomanu weren't good enough to make up for that. The next two weeks will be trying, but after the bye we should have Branch and Hackett back. As much as I want to see Burleson do well, my eyes are telling me that he doesn't have the special ability that Hackett does. I've been a fan of Hackett from the very beginning, simply because he always makes big plays. I've heard he doesn't practice hard enough, but hopefully that can be worked with. Burleson is a great #4, not a #2.

Shaun Alexander is awful. At least, as compared to his $62 million contract he is. It's not so much that he appears to not put out a full effort. That was the case during his MVP year. I have two major problems with him. (1) He's a highly dependent runner. I've heard him referred to as a "vision runner." That's a nice way of saying Alexander looks for holes, and if nothing is there he, and Seattle's offense, is screwed. That works great with a dominant offensive line and a pro-bowl full back (i.e. 2005). Take those away and you get a 3 yard/carry average. (2) Alexander isn't a dancer, and isn't big enough to be a bruiser. I love the way young backs run today. They dance through defenders in a manner that resembles how streetballers stretch 1.5 steps to 3.5 steps on the blacktop. They run low and wide, and can change directions on a dime. Alexander can run through a hole and break through shoulder tackles. He uses a dated running style and his lack of versatility absolutely kills Holmgren's pure west coast offense.

I found out today that Mack Strong's season, and probably his career, are over. I hate to see a great team guy like Strong go, but there might be a silver lining in replacing him with a younger back like Weaver. I also heard that Mo' Morris might be given a greater percentage of game carries. I'm fine with that. And I can't believe I'm saying I'm fine with Morris taking caries away from Alexander. I found myself looking at Mel Kiper's 2008 draft board to see which running backs were projected where.

This isn't specific to the Pittsburgh game, but the left side of the offensive line, including the center, isn't good. Walter Jones is great, but he's definitely declining. Sims and Spencer may be good (or better) one day, but right now they're still learning. You can't have multiple offensive linemen learning their positions and expect to be a great team.

The defense was just 'this' close to making plays for negative Pittsburgh yardage, and Pittsburgh continually turned those plays into big gains (or at least first downs). That's the margin of error that separates teams in the NFL. Give the Steelers credit for being a great team and making plays. I don't have much of a complaint with the defense, except for some poor tackling on a few plays.

This was likely the most difficult game for the season. In the next four weeks, the 'hawks have games against New Orleans, St. Louis, a bye, and at Cleveland. Those are three very winnable games. All three should be won. If the Seahawks can get to 6-2, they'll probably have one of the top four records in the NFC and will have a nice bit of momentum going into the second half of the season. At that point, if all goes well, Branch and Hackett will be back, Weaver will have become a serviceable (and possibly dynamic) fullback, the offensive line can gel a bit more, and some kind of running game can be relied upon. If all of the happens, then maybe the Seahawks have a chance at making a run in the playoffs.