Mike Holmgren talked for almost an hour in his final press conference as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks.

He still has the urge to work in the NFL again, and said he would be surprised if he did not return to the league in some capacity, either as a general manager or head coach, or both.

Among the highlights during his 10-year tenure in Seattle, he says the Carolina game where Seattle won the NFC Championship and advanced to the Super Bowl was one of his most memorable moments.

"Had we won the Super Bowl, that would have been the highlight," Holmgren said. "But the experience of getting there and all of the hard work it took. I had the same feeling at that time as I had in my earlier Super Bowl experiences."

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In his last mid-week press conference as Seattle's coach, Mike Holmgren was given the Horrigan Award, which he won last year from the Pro Football Writers Association for his contributions to the media. In short, the guy has been great to work with from a media perspective, and he was recognized as such last year -- something that he always joked was long overdue.

A great deal of the news conference was in reference to what he will miss, what he won't miss and his future. Most of the stuff was predictable in terms of being in the locker room and his relationships with players and coaches. He said he would spend about 10 days to a week in Seattle closing down his affairs here, and then will head to Phoenix for a good long time. He is going to spend the summer at their "little cabin" in California. He has not finalized travel plans but he and Kathy plan on doing some traveling.

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Mike Holmgren was sporting a cold following yesterday's big day. The question sitting there is that yesterday was so emotional, and there was such a sense of closure, that it seems difficult to come back in today and get ready for the Cardinals.

Holmgren said that there was closure with the home crowd and with Qwest, but he still didn't have closure with his players. That will come next Monday, after the team comes back from Phoenix, and he said he's sure it will get very emotional.

The players had today off, will practice on Tuesday (their regular day off) and Wednesday and then have Thursday (Christmas) off.

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Seattle head coach Mike Holmgren just finished up his Monday afternoon press conference. During a bulk of the time he talked about coaching his last game at Qwest Field, a place he helped get done as part of the rebuilding process when he took the Seattle job.

I'll get to that in a minute, but I want to update you on the news first.

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First, the newsy injury stuff:

Leroy Hill seems to be getter better faster than anybody and there is a chance he could play against the Rams.

Matt Hasselbeck and Walter Jones are the same, neither will practice today, and both are listed as questionable. It sure didn't sound to me like they were going to play, but very little about the injury stuff this year has been exact.

Josh Wilson, who had a concussion in Sunday's game, will not practice today but will be ready to play against the Rams.

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We hit the superfecta on Monday, meeting with Mike Holmgren for his weekly postgame press conference, then hooking up with Walter Jones, Lofa Tatupu and Matt Hasselbeck in the locker room after. Holmgren was the least interesting so I will save him for last.

Hasselbeck said he is hoping to play again. He said he was more hopeful than realistic that he could play last week, but the team's medical staff told him that Wednesday he was probably not healthy enough to play. He said he did not know specifics of what is going on, but they basically said that a disc takes longer to heal and this one does not have the time to heal during a football season -- particularly with the types of hits he took in the Dallas game.

This was interesting: Matt said there has been a discussion of him shutting it down for the rest of the year, and if he did that he would be fully healthy by Valentines Day. So I asked him if he plays again, does that mean he will be healthy by the Ides of March. He said it was too difficult to predict, particularly since he does not know what kind of hits he will take between now and then. But he has ruled out surgery.

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With the team signing Na'Shan Goddard, it did not address the team's backup center need. Mike Holmgren said during his press conference that Manny Wrotto is the backup center for now. A follow-up question was not asked about whether Wrotto snapping to Hasselbeck was a concern.

Holmgren said the Plaxico Burress situation offers him the chance to address his players -- again -- about doing the right thing. One thing he said that is pretty sobering is that he said a few years ago the coaches had to start collecting guns from players during training camp. He said that even though athletes might be targets, they should have the sense to not put themselves in the situation where they might have to defend themselves.

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Here was Holmgren's response to some of the defensive players criticizing the schemes in the loss to Dallas:

“I did not address it with the players because I didn’t know," Holmgren said. "I didn’t know about it. A couple things happened: after you lose a game—an emotional game, and you guys know this—sometimes players say things that they believe, but it’s not necessarily true all the time. In their frame of reference, they think it’s going to work that way, but it doesn’t. The simple fact of the matter is, this season, we have not taken the ball away very much, and that’s a frustration for our defense. And we have not gotten pressure on the quarterback…and that’s been a frustration. So, automatically, if you lose a tough game [you say], ‘Well, we should’ve done this.’ Or, ‘Heck, Coach Holmgren should’ve called more runs.’ Whatever it is. Whatever we did in the game, it didn’t work. So we should’ve done something else. I think you got to be careful with that stuff. When we have blitzed this season, I could show you ten plays where we went after them hard, and they threw the ball downfield for a long touchdown play. So, it’s a frustration more than anything else. The players care, though, which I like. They really do care. And in their mind, if they think a way is better, I think you have to listen to them a little bit. I believe that. If Matt Hasselbeck were to come to me and say, ‘You know what? I think if we try these couple things…’ I would absolutely listen to him. Absolutely listen to him. And then, if I didn’t think that that was the way to go, then I would tell him, and these are the reasons why. But we’ll try this. I think we’ll do some of that, probably…on defense. But you know how it is, I mean, heck, things get said. How much of it is real? I think after they see the film, which they now have seen, they might look at it a little differently.”

Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said in his Monday news conference that center Chris Spencer very well could be placed on injured reserve. Holmgren said they were going to wait a few days to make sure, but he certainly sounded as if they knew what was wrong with his back -- disc problem -- and that he likely is not going to be able to come back.

Same could be true for Mike Wahle. Holmgren said last week that Wahle should be able to play against the Patriots. But today he said that his shoulder is not responding the way they think it should, and if that too is going to be a long-term thing they are likely to place him on IR as well. It sounds like the Spencer decision is more immediate though since they don't have anyone besides Manny Wrotto to back him up.

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Mike Holmgren is having his regular Monday press conference at 2:15.

Here is a link to a piece I wrote today, in which I basically said it might be a good idea to set aside fair or unfair and start playing the younger players so that Tim Ruskell could get a better evaluation of what he has before he heads into the draft and free agency.

And with the New England Patriots coming to town, I'll pose a question that can carry us until Holmgren meets with the media: It is becoming increasingly clear that the Patriots are not going to be able to afford Matt Cassel, who in Tom Brady's absence has proven to be a very good quarterback, Sunday's performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers notwithstanding. Before that, though, he had back-to-back 400-yard performances and has won player of the week honors. The question is this: If you could get Cassel in free agency at the expense of Matt Hasselbeck, would you do it?

There are obviously many things to consider here, but the first of them is the ages of the players. Hasselbeck is 33. Cassel is 26. Hasselbeck has a bad back. Cassel hasn't had any problems yet. If the organization is starting over -- it has not said it is, just to be clear -- would it be better off starting over with a guy Jim Mora and Company can develop? Or would it be better off having Hasselbeck, who knows the offense so well, carry the team while a draftee serves as Hasselbeck's understudy until he is ready?

A number of issues were covered in Mike Holmgren's press conference, which was pushed ahead to Tuesday because of the Thursday game.

First, Chris Spencer is missing practice today because of his sore back. Steve Vallos is standing in for Spencer, who is questionable for the Thanksgiving Day game.

Also, Holmgren said he does not expect Mike Wahle back until the New England game. That was pretty much it on the injury front.

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Your secondary was probably the biggest improvement last year. What has happened where they have given up the big plays?

"I think we have given up some because of size problems. We have a couple guys in the secondary who are try-hard guys and they are talented, but we have been victimized by that a little bit. Our pass rush hasn't been what it has been in the past, so in an effort to get to the quarterback we have gambled more than we have in the past. The irony of that is that we sometimes have been criticized for not blitzing enough. My feeling is this year we have been hurt more than helped by doing that because we have been in a lot of one-on-one situations and they have converted against us. I am surprised because I felt that would be a strength of our team this year and we struggled a little bit."

Some of the players will point out that they're in the top 10 in the league in sacks.

"In those situations where we have emptied the post as an example and put those young, our corners on an island, we've been burned. There are two or three plays that come to mind where we had the all-out blitz and we didn't get home. We didn't win our one-on-one battles. We saw one last week where the defensive end had a sack on Warner, and he jumped out. Warner did a whoop. Same thing with Pennington the week before. Had a sack, jumped. It's the little things, it's the detail, and those plays hurt us. Statistics by themselves, numbers by themselves, don't tell the story. Lack of numbers do sometimes, but to be in the top third in sacks, that's great. That's great. Maybe we should be number one in sacks if you study the film and then maybe those 10 or 12 sacks that we should've had that would've put us there, maybe they've cost us four games. Believe me, that's why the stats, the numbers, I don't, I used to, I don't do it so much anymore. Because you can play with those and kind of make a case for most things."