Seattle SEAHAWKS at Tampa Bay BUCCANEERS, 10a (Fox)

I hope the holidays have been kind to all of you out there.

I left my place last week during the time span when I would usually write a postgame piece. It's not that I was more bummed out than usual, I guess the motivation wasn't too high. I wasn't overly happy or overly miffed about anything, unlike the two weeks beforehand where I started crafting a game post right after the game or even during it.

Once I heard Mike Holmgren's postgame press conference, I had the feeling that he went about addressing his team the right way. Specifically, he didn't unleash a tirade that peeled paint off the walls of the home locker room at Qwest Field. Rather, he was upbeat, focusing on the fact that one of their goals at the beginning of the year was to win the division, and by gum, they did it.

It's not like Holmgren could have laid into his team again. He had two straight weeks to do that, and this loss was nowhere near as devastating as those two. He wouldn't get any more out of this team by laying into them; if they didn't get it by now, they never would. There were elements that made this Seahawk team seem more like themselves. More specifically, Shaun Alexander had a very good game. The defense was largely great except for the final touchdown play, but we can't expect all of the inconsistency to be wiped away in one week, can we? Ditto the inconsistency for the Nate Burleson return touchdown getting called back on a holding penalty. Also, it appeared to me that the leftover spirit of Koren Robinson must have squeezed the champion out of Deion Branch, or how else would a Super Bowl MVP drop four passes?

Still, even though Seattle is locked into the fourth seed in the NFC, I think the Seahawks should be going for the win here instead of pulling all the starters at a certain point in the game. Why? If they lose this game, they will be hosting a playoff game at Qwest Field next weekend having not won a football game in over a month (Denver on the road). I think the fact that the Seahawks don't have a first-round bye could really work in their favor if they get a win where they get some good momentum and manage to play more like everyone knows they're capable of playing.

Still, we do have to remember that right now the Seahawks are an 8-7 team that can't finish any better than 9-7. It's hard to imagine the team was 8-4 at one point, isn't it?

Labels: seahawk game thread, seahawks