Eric D. Williams took over the Seahawks beat and Seahawks Insider blog in December. Williams has covered the Seahawks, Sonics and high school sports for The News Tribune since joining the paper in 2006. Eric lives in Tacoma with his wife and two children.
Tacoma News Tribune columnist Dave Boling also contributes to the Seahawks Insider blog.
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The Seahawks players will hold their own practices on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings, while the coaches will have most of the week off. The players will then get the weekend off before coming back to work next week. Mike Holmgren said he would have asked the players to stay in shape during the week anyway, but they chose to practice in part because they are not quite where they want to be record-wise.
When they do come back, Holmgren said he expects to have back Sean Locklear, Deion Branch, Bobby Engram, Mo Morris, Seneca Wallace and Koren Robinson.
Of Branch, he said it is kind of like check's in the mail; he is being told he will be back, but until he sees it he will be skeptical. He talked about the only thing that will get Branch comfortable with getting hit is getting hit. There is no substitute.
Of Locklear, Holmgren said they are in a little bit of a conundrum. Now, with Pork Chop (who is OK) playing so well, they have three players for two spots, right guard and right tackle. He said they have not figured out whether to go (L to R) Willis and Locklear, Locklear and Willis or Pork Chop and Locklear. But he really likes what Willis has been doing at right tackle, and Chop has been good as well, certainly much better than Rob Sims.
They also are in a conundrum about the return of Mo Morris, and he said he will think on that one all week as well. Julius Jones has two consecutive 100-yard games and clearly is getting it going. Holmgren does not want to mess with that. He said in the fashion that he used Duckett to spell Jones yesterday, he said he likely will do the same thing with Morris, using him to spell Jones. But, he said, Duckett earned the right to have a role with the team as well, though that role may be short-yardage and goal line guy who is scoring and getting first downs. Still, he is noodling on that.
Of the run game itself, Holmgren said he would like to stay balanced in the offense even though the running game has fared so well. He does not like to be one-sided like yesterday, when they had 46 runs and 20 passes. At the same time, he sensed the offensive linemen hunkering down and getting lathered up because they were having so much success and wanted to keep it going. "I could kind of hear the drums beating," is how he phrased it.
He confirmed that Courtney Taylor had been demoted. He said that he planned to use Taylor to spell both the Z and the X spots, but then Keary was having a good day and McMullen started off the game so well that Taylor kind of fell by the wayside. He said they still like him, and he is handling his role well, but they had to go with other guys who could be productive. Imagine what happens to Taylor once Branch and Engram and Robinson are back. He will go from starting flanker to the inactive list.
Holmgren said he has not lost faith in Michael Bumpus's punt returning despite his muff. He said it was a great punt and Bumpus misjudged it but he is a good receiver of punts overall.
About their position, Holmgren said he feels that they should have one more win. They let the SF game slip away and should be 2-1. Buffalo, they just got beat. But, he said, it is early. Things will start to sort themselves out. And he feels good about where they are because they are going to start getting healthy. "The season starts all over again for us," he said. Imagine, he said, that they were talking in their meeting today about who they will have to put on the inactive list. That is a luxury they didn't appreciate before.
COMMENTS:
Combined with the Seahawks woeful post-Bye record under Holmgren, they are going to have to turn around some serious 10 year trends when they play at NYG.
No one has to be waived or moved to the PS because Branch and Ingram were not on IR. They were part of the 53 man squad and were put on the inactive list each week. When they get back, more than likely players such as Taylor/Bumpus will be made inactive (read moved down the depth chart).
Also- Taylor is effective on special teams in punt coverage. I wonder who will take that spot from him if he is inactive? Branch? No. Engram? No. Koren- maybe. McMullen- maybe....we'll see. If you aren't a starting WR you need to contribute heavily on special teams if you want to be active. Fingers crossed that this team stays injury free during the bye-week and incident free off the field.
Will be great to get our WR's back -- on another thread, one of the posters said he noticed Carlson getting double-coverage, if that's true, that will certainly change around when we get Engram and Branch back.
The team has some weaknesses, but the running game is a real eye-opener, easily the best we've had since the Super Bowl year.
Huge improvement by the special teams from Bills game to Niners game. More improvement from Niners game to Rams game. It will continue to improve.
Nice to see Hawk RBs having success running right. I just hope they have someone ready to replace Womack when/if he goes down.
Carlson still has false starts but he is playing ahead of schedule and by December might be special.
Having Branch and Engram back opens up the play book.
The season is young. In 05 the Hawks started out 2-2. I'm not conceding anything yet.
I am skeptical of Branch being back within the next month. If he is, I would say its too early. Even so, I do not know how much more Branch adds anyway.
I think, given the complexity of Holmgren's playbook, the "fill-in" receivers did a great job against the Rams. I know, it was just the Rams.
Let's give the Hawks a couple of days of celebration and rest before we start labelling them 1-3.
I would not be surprised if we see the Hawks pull a Philly '05 out next week. We match up pretty good against the Giants, better than any team they have faced this year. With our running game going we are looking good.
Pork Chop and Willis have earned the starting roles. They have gotten it done on the right side and they should be allowed to keep getting it done until someone beats them. I've never seen Locklear drive block with the force Willis showed on Sunday.
As for Taylor well he might be getting inactive alot once Branch and engram comes back as he shows nothing on the field. He had his change and lost it.
Because he sucks. Don't bother with waivers, cut his ass.
Citing facts is not "negative comments". If you don't know Holmgren's record after the bye, where have you been the last 9 years?
So now the homers think the Giants suck, especially at home? Guess they've been spiking the Kool Aid with Ecstacy. 1st) remember how this team performs with 10AM (Pacific) start times on the east coast. 2nd)remember the team they're facing may have "only" faced the Rams (on the road) and Bengals as well as the Redskins (who are shaping up to be a good team) in the opener, but they managed to still beat the Bengals in OT, which is more than we did with the Whiners. 3rd) Anyone who thinks THIS team is going to waltz into the Meadowlands and destroy the Giants like the 05 team did to a beat up and depleted Eagles team should be committed to an institution and undergo a series of psychiatric evaluations.
Look dudes, if you're done wetting yourselves and getting orgasmic over the Seahawks pounding the NFL's version of a Special Olympics team, take off the rose colored glasses. The next opponent isn't the Whiners and it damn sure isn't the Lambs, it's a real team with a real defense and real offense and a real quarterback. If they gave up 300 yards to a 3rd string turd like J.T. O'Sullivan, if they let a 35 year old geriatric run wild in the secondary, if they can only get 1 sack on Marc Freakin' Bulger, if they had 7 plays for loss PLUS a sack against the Rams, it's kind of scary to think what Eli Manning could do this defense or how badly Plaxico Burress will rape Kelly Jennings or Josh Wilson or whatever other midget, excuse me, "little person", uh vertically challenged cornerback they trot out to cover him. This game could be rated at least NC-17 just on that account. As for that supposedly gawd-awful defense some posters here think the Giants now possess since Strahan retired Osi is out, they currently rank 8th against the run and 7th against the pass, and 4th in scoring defense. Oh I forgot, they haven't played anyone good like the 49ers.
Am I saying the Seahawks can't go back there and win? No, I'm saying it's unlikely. I hope they do, and it would really shut up the asinine Whiner and Crudinal fans. But there are some here who are positively giddy over the fact that the Hawks clobbered the Rams, and are saying the Giants suck because the Bengals put a good game together against them (I imagine Coughlin is bringing out a cat o'nine tails to use on them instead of giving them time off for that one) and even saying we're going to annihilate them like what happened to the Eagles 3 years ago (with a vastly superior team than the 08 version of the Hawks). Huh? Where does that come from? Let's be realistic, it was nice to win and win big, but remember who the opponent was. Temper the rhetoric.
Now if he comes back and sucks it up and it clearly shows that Willis has played up to the role and earned it, then okay...stick Willis back in there. But for now, he's our temporary RT only and will have to fight a HEALTHY Locklear in order to be our fulltime starter.
****
With that said....I don't care what they do to our right side of the line other than putting Locklear in at guard. Too much change, different role, different reads...etc. Stick Chop or Willis at guard, they're used to it...but not Lock. If we do, then we have an uncomfortable RT playing RG and a still-new/young RT...rather than a new/young RG and established RT.
bad typo....
Last time I saw Locklear start at RT, he was getting his big rear end spanked on every play by the Packers. Willis has been knocking the stuffing out of people for the last two games. If Lock returns and this competition lights a fire under Lock to play nastier, good. If not, then Lock looks like a good backup for Walter at LT since he's such a good QB protector. I like Willis at RT and I like Chop at RG.
I'm not interested for finesse players. This new line can knock the crap out of people.
However, to say "everything is working so well" might be a little misleading since we just played the St. Louis Pop-Warner All-Stars.
are you really a hawks fan? i hear the cards wagon has room...
They have a very strong Pass Rush and they kicked Cincinatti's butt early rushing the pass, BUT Cincinatti ran all over them. (I only saw the first 1/2 I went to the Rams game)YES Cincinatti is a passing team that ran all over the Giants like we should be able to do since we now seem to have a strong rushing game.
Once we establish the run the passing game will open up.
If they stack the box put Weaver, Schmitt, and Duckett in there(wishbone formation)with locklear(or whoever isn't starting) as a tight end like last week and pound on the Giants.
The pass will open up after we run the ball.
Seahawks D also needs to MAN-UP they have been dissappointing so far this season.
Hopefully this week the D sticks around and works instead of taking time off, they already took 2 games off this year.
It will be a great game to watch Seahawk fan or not they should win this game.
ESPN Article from the Daily News
"Between now and then they(the Giants) have a relatively easy schedule with games against the Seattle Seahawks (1-2), ........
Knowing what's ahead - and knowing that the Giants have historically been awful after the bye week, going just 4-15 - Tom Coughlin will not be focusing on how well the Giants have done this season, and he won't only be looking ahead to the Seahawks"
Giants are worse then the Seahawks following the Bye + they seem to already be looking past the Seahawks
Just some bits
Oh, and before I forget, it's not "vertically challenged" anymore, as "challenged" has negative connotations. Federal law now requires the term "vertically differently-abled."
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