Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren confirmed after practice that QB Matt Hasselbeck is out for the San Francisco game and Seneca Wallace will start. Holmgren said Hasselbeck is rehabbing and his understanding is he is getting better. But he did not exactly dispel the notion that this could possibly be worst-case scenario and Hasselbeck may not come back this year. When asked that very question, he started out by saying this, "I am confident that he, well ...." Pause. "I am pretty confident he'll be back. But right now for anybody it is a little bit of guesswork. They are doing all the right stuff. He is doing all the right stuff. It's just the leg has to respond, is my understanding, the strength has to respond. The nerve has to start going in the right direction."

Seneca said he feels a little more confident this week because he has had another full week to work out and gets in reps. He said he doesn't know about the calf. He said if something happens to it during the game, he promised to alert Holmgren.

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I was asking Lofa Tatupu about the defense building on the second half of last week's game in Tampa. He said he thinks the defense has actually played well the last two games -- they just need to get off the field. He said he thought they played well last week and got penalized unfairly by the officials on both the Bryant TD and the Ike Hilliard fumble.

Deion Branch is again not playing, and Holmgren said the heel is just too painful for Branch to compete. He said Koren is fine and will play, as will Pork Chop. The latter was back at practice playing right guard, though he once false started, sending Holmgren into one of his famous rages. Thereafter, the offense's tempo was pretty good and Holmgren seemed a little playful, even going over and acting as if he was lay out Deon Grant after Grant was returning an interception of a Charlie Frye pass.

It was a nice day out at the VMAC, with a few birds sitting on a log watching practice, but for whatever reason Brandon Mebane was wearing an all-white arctic head wrap thingy (that's an official term, by the way) that you might see a musher wearing in the Iditarod. That should help in San Francisco, where it's about 23 degrees below zero.