Better Attitude?

Click the external link to read the story on the News Tribune.

Much has been made of the attitude problem that some of the Seahawks players from last season's squad apparently had, comments by Trent Dilfer and perhaps to a lesser degree Chike Okeafor confirm that at least in the minds of some players, an attitude problem existed within the team. It is interesting in light of that, to read Mike Holmgren's comments yesterday both defending last years squad and praising this years squad. Here of some of the more interesting quotes.

"We had a good attitude last year," Holmgren said Thursday as the team concluded its post-draft minicamp. "We just lost some real tough ballgames."

"Much has been said and it almost implies that our attitude last year was bad, Holmgren said. It was not bad last year. We had a good group last year. That has not been said enough. We had a good group last year that got injured a little bit."

"But the new fellas that we have brought on board and our draft choices are very impressive guys to me in the fact that they have great attitudes. We brought in people that think the way we think."

"Then some of the people that are not here anymore, they probably wanted to be someplace else. You put those two things together and, yeah, I like our attitude."

It sounds to me as if he is saying both that the attitude on last years team, (in his mind anyway), was not as bad as many thought, but that the overall attitude on this years team is better. I realize that both can be true at the same time, but I sort of wish Mike would get down off the fence. I know that it is important to cover the backs of your athletes, but sometimes I would like to cut through the coach-speak and get to the truth. I also wonder just how much Holmgren was really aware of being a coach, not a player, since players are much closer to problems with other players than coaches are.

In any case, whatever the truth about last years squad, whether there was a prevailing bad attitude or whether it was isolated to just a few bad apples or whether the reported problem was exaggerated; it is nice to see that even while defending last years group, Holmgren admits that this years squad has a positive attitude.