Alba's Dark Angel Award: Week 12

In preparing for this post, I noticed that I have been remiss in handing out the Dark Angel Award for two weeks now. I could chalk one of them up to an inexplicable loss to the Niners, and the other to the short week after playing on Monday Night, but champions don't make excuses, so I guess I'll just have to own it!

And speaking of champions owning it instead of making excuses, that's what the Seahawks have been doing as well. Sadly, as noted on other posts, they have yet to put together four consecutive quarters of championship caliber football, but despite their mistakes and sloppy play, they've been scratching and clawing and willing themselves to victory each week.

Which brings us to this week's Dark Angel Award. If you think Alan had slim pickins for his D.O.G. award this week, you can imagine how difficult my job is with the way the Seahawks played on Sunday night.

I could take the easy route and give it to Mike Shannahan, who decided to start his rookie QB against the Seahawks, probably hoping that his alleged cannon for an arm would take advantage of Seattle's suspect play in the secondary. Hell, I could give it to Jay Cutler himself for that matter, who seemed to be throwing to visiting team as often as he was targeting his own guys. But I hate the Broncos and everything associated with them, so Mike and Jay better be content with just missing the playoffs and getting a mid-round, vanilla draft pick.

On the Seahawks side of the ball, I gave consideration to backup Tight End, and even further down the depth chart, backup Fullback Will Heller. Nobody ever expected to see 103-year old and strong as an ox Mack Strong leave the game due to injury, but when that happened, Heller was there to answer the bell. After a bit of a shakey start, he seemed to settle into the position, and actually helped Shaun Alexander get going in the second half. But with no rushes and only one catch for 4 yards, we need to look a little further for this week's winner.

Enter Darryl Tapp. On an off night for the defense, and an even worse night for the offense, by halftime our rookie defensive end had more receiving yards than Darrell Jackson and more touchdowns than Shaun Alexander. His heads up play on the Jay Cutler "whirlybird" put Seattle in the game, but ended up being the difference maker in the final score.

Honorable mention has to go to Special Teams standout Josh Scobey, who once again provided outstanding blocking on returns, and great coverage on kicks, being there to down two Gus the Mule punts within the 2 yard line. Scoobs broke a bone in his arm or shoulder in that game, so his availability is unclear for the stretch run, but we wish him a speedy recovery as he's that important to our Special Teams unit.


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