What I Learned From: Sitting in warm, dry living room watching the game while Philly fans languish in misery

Last week, I really figured we lose this one. The 10am kickoff, the lousy pass protection the week before, the fact that two blowouts may spell a letdown, not to mention Shaun Alexander bringing his miserable YPC back to the team -- it had my nutsack in a bunch, to say the least.

But what did I learn?

• 1/2 Morris + 1/2 Alexander = One competent running back.


• The opening drive showed some real creativity in an effort to keep Philly off balance. In the red zone, we saw a triple-tight end power formation, but a play-action pass attempt to (gasp) Tom Ashworth. After that, we saw a pass formation, but it was a run to the left by Alexander. Woooo, tricky stuff there, Mike.


• I don't know how much to hate on RG Chris Gray. He gets physically overwhelmed several times per game, and makes me yell at the TV. But then he goes and TOTALLY REDEEMS HIMSELF when fills in perfectly for a nicked C Chris Spencer. I almost wonder if they shouldn't switch positions, since Gray calls the blocking assignments anyway. Which makes me wonder -- Is Spencer retarded? Guards shouldn't need to make those calls.


• 'Pork Chop' Womack filled in well for Walter Jones, and later on, Chris Gray when Spencer went out--and his effectiveness also nearly baffled me. But then I thought about the sloppy conditions, and realized that this was a perfect game for him. Quickness was absolutely not necessary. But if this were played in a dome, this Pork would have been smoked.


• Mo Morris' TD run was cool. Not just for the last juke that sealed the points, but the blocking was great. Big Walt was the anchor, Pollard made a great seal on the end, But Leonard Weaver took a linebacker and a defensive end in one diving assault.


• Should Engram be considered for the Ring of Honor? We already have a lot of candidates on this team -- Hasselbeck, Alexander, Strong, Jones, and if he keeps it up, Tatupu. But what about Bobby? I would hate to see him overlooked. I love that guy. Without him, this season is in the toilet. Without him, a several previous seasons are in the sewer.


• Lofa Tatupu is a freak. You saw the highlight reel. Smartest defensive player I've ever seen. It's uncanny. If we took his brain and heart and planted it in, say, LaVar Arrington's body, offenses as we know it would cease to exist. At least until Roger Goodell made it illegal to be LaVar Tatupu.


• Rocky Bernard is a baller. He just doesn't get enough credit for all the havoc he wreaketh. It was good to see him get a little credit on the goal line stand.


• Speaking of goal line stands-- this defense is damn good at them. They make good reads (thanks again, Lofa) and play it right. I have a feeling this is going to come in handy in five weeks or so.

That's all I got for now. I need to take a shit. Discuss.

What I Learned From... Tightening the Noose on the NFC West

Ignore all the "beat themselves" crap coming out of the niner camp and the national media. The Seahawks' defense destroyed the 49ers, and kept them confused, jumpy, panicked and befuddled the entire game. That's what happens when an offensive line is overmatched-- they hold, they jump the count, they overplay and miss their assignment.



It's like playing chess with an eight year-old: You take out some important pieces from him, then all of a sudden he's taking desperate, thoughtless chances, and pretty soon playing the old, "oops, I sneezed with my arm flailing and took out the whole damn board" trick.

So the game is over with. The Seahawks take the lead in the division. Frank Gore is a moron for giving the Seahawks bulletin board material. Justin Smiley is now Mr. Yuk. Larry Allen is a overfilled waterbed with cleats. Trent Dilfer is a gentleman and a traitor. And Darrell Jackson is a lazy fuckin' hippie.

Speaking of hippies, they're stupid, too. Watch, listen as Penn & Teller make complete asses out of these embicilic fuckheads.




Bring on the Steelers. Now. Please.

What I Learned From... Pissing Away a Win

I'm calm enough to write something now.

Maybe.

I'm pretty much a day behind in all the post game write ups anyway, and by now everyone knows that Shaun Alexander (and a couple of other players) thought Matt Hasselbeck called an audible on their last offensive play, resulting in a botched handoff and hundreds of thousands of Seahawks fans cursing at their TV. But I have some of my usual crap that no one else seems to be writing about.

What did I learn?

• Don't bother with all the fancy-schmancy faking of audibles when all we need to do is run out the clock and make a field goal. Really. And why are we handing the ball to a guy with a cast on one hand in the final seconds of the game anyway?
• LeRoy Hill adds a ton of physicality to the defense that Kevin Bentley does not. Bentley is a walking, talking weak spot.
• We really do need Mo Morris. Alexander is scary this year, but not in a good way. More like a, 'hmmm, is he going to be with us or not' way.
• Losing to the Cards by self-destruction is a bit like rubbing your scrotum with a cheese grater and sitting in a bowl of lemon juice in front of a crowd.
• Rob Sims quietly had a great game.
• Kelly Jennings' size (or lack thereof) is a massive liability in single coverage.
• This offense has got to stop hanging the defense out to dry in the first half.

Nope, still pissed. Time to take it out on the Bengals. Ocho Cinco, where art thou?

What I Learned From... Removing Holmgren's Boot From My Hindparts

Even though Holmgren has been at this coaching gig for a while, It's good to know that the team still listens to him. It was John Madden that once said ten years was a good limit to a head coaching career in the NFL. After that, the players stop listening to you. (I wonder if that's true with NFL announcing, too? Hint, hint, Mr. Madden.)

It's very clear many of the players responded with greater focus and effort following Holmgren's threats/tirades/epithets from the Green Bay debacle. Not only was the score a little more favorable, but they played much better against the Vikings. But, of course, there still was much to learn:

• Hooray! Shaun Alexander actually caught a couple of passes. Sure, he was so intent on catching the ball that he cradled his whole body around it and immediately dropped to the ground. But it's a start. Maybe sometime soon he can take the next step and catch the ball on the on the run like he did years ago.


• Marcus Pollard finally got involved. This guy is going to work.


• Rocky Bernard had a great game, in the shadow of all the attention given to Brandon Mebane and Marcus Tubbs. He was tossing around interior linemen like pillows.


• On that note, much like the 2005 season, most of the pressure to the quarterback is coming from the devensive tackles, not from the edge. Which is friggin' awesome.


• Shaun Locklear is a billion times better at left tackle than Tom Ashworth. Holy Cow.


• This new, nifty little WR screen we saw several times last night has some potential. Now if only our receivers could work on their blocking (namely, DJ Hackett and Deion Branch) it might work in the regular season. But then again, expect some game planning against it. It may not work as well in a couple of weeks.


• I could watch Nate Burelson break the ankles of punters all day.


• Listening to Verne Lundquist give the Seahawks play-by-play is a bit like Lawrence Welk playing AC/DC covers.


• Josh Wilson is the man on kickoff returns. But he carries the ball a little like Tiki Barber, though, sort of like carrying a baby through a burning building that's about to collapse.


• Mo Morris broke 2 tackles last night. Time for him to call it a season.

• I have a whole new respect for Bobby Engram, now that he's really old and still productive. It reminds me of Largent's later years. Just don't let Bobby switch to a single-bar kicker's helmet. That was kind of gay when Steve did that. If I recall correctly, Charlie Joiner did the same thing. Nothing says, "I'm really fucking old. When you take the ball from me, please change my diaper," like a single-bar facemask.


• Speaking of surprising old farts, Chris Gray got off on Pat Williams on Alexander's 1-yard rushing TD, blowing him four yards into the end zone.


• Is that right? Did special teams go all night without a penalty?


• I'm not sure what happened to the defense at the start of the second half. Part of it seemed as though they just came out flat. The other part seems to be that Laury, Koutouvides, and Tapp got out of position routinely.


• Having said that, mark my words: Will Herring is here to stay.


• All this talk about Mike Holmgren threatening to cut Leonard Weaver is horseshit, in my opinion. Holmie needs him, with Mack Strong downing so much Geritol. My guess is that he's just trying to motivate. On the other hand, according to the TNT, when asked about Weaver after the game, Holmgren offed that he was going to look at film, and immediately talked about how some of the cuts were going to be tough. Not good.

What I Learned From... Getting pummelled by the cheese

OK, OK, I know, this is waaay late. But I'm getting back on the blogging saddle here after moving, a vacation, and a sweet hematoma I picked up from water skiing (registration required). But there are some things about the last game that just need to be said.

First of all, there is the humiliation of the final score - the most points the Packers have scored in a preseason game in 69 years blah blah blah. Keep in mind that abysmal performances are all about context. For example, the thought of being pummeled to death by cheese is a pretty frightening one. But in the context of the above photo, hmmm, not so bad.

What, then of the context of the previous game? The beauty of it all is that it's fucking preseason, folks. Not that any loss with this sort of score is a good thing, but if you're going to lay an egg, do it here. There was more to be learned from this game than possibly any other game this season. It will make the Seahawks better. That's what the preseason is for.

So here is the list:

• How many of you were a bit terrified when you realized that Tom Ashworth was starting at left tackle? All I could think of at that point was, no wonder he is benching Hasselbeck. He's throwing Seneca to the wolves with a steak around his neck. Holmgren knows Ashworth blew it against the Lions last year. This was his chance to see if that was an anomaly, or Ashworth really is a one-position man. Well, lesson learned. Now it appears he is a third-string right tackle, and on the bubble.
• I think the next person that gets a penalty on special teams should get sodomized by a whale.
• Brandon Mebane will be starting by mid-season, if not sooner.
• There are definitely some new wrinkles in the defense, but Grant and Russell may take a while to show why they were signed on.
• Marcus Trufant is playing better since switch back to the other side of the field. You can even see it in his walk.
• David Greene is done. Done, done, done. If you can't throw worth a shit, you can't play quarterback in the NFL. (Insert Mike Vick joke here).

That's all I got. It's preseason for me, too.