 The Seattle Seahawks have managed to survive the early season injury to Matt Hasselbeck with a 2-3 record and a third place standing in the NFC West. Fans at Quest Field have to breathe a sigh of relief that they are not completely out of the division race. They still have four division games to catch up and have the same somewhat easy schedule down the path as the rest of the football teams in the division. So far, the Seahawks have resoundingly won both games that Hasselbeck started and finished, beating the Rams 28-0 in Week 1 and the Jaguars 41-0 in Week 5. The three games in the middle with Seneca Wallace were all losses (though the team could easily be 3-2 if they just held on in the fourth quarter against the Bears in Week 3). Obviously, with Hasselbeck on the field this is a different team, a football team that can shutout bad teams. Seattle running back Julius Jones has been feast or famine, with games of just a couple yards a carry or five or six yards a carry. He needs to be a little more consistent and remain true to his deceiving 4.1 yards a carry season average to help the offense against teams not having a crisis of leadership. Receivers Nate Burleson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh are both glad to have Hasselbeck back, Burleson especially. Having a quarterback with the touch to go with arm strength will help all the receivers, including much used safety valve tight end John Carlson. With Wallace on the bench hopefully this will cut down on the fumbles that helped lead to those three losses. His two picks and two fumbles in two and a half games were killers. The good news is that the defense looks pretty good, posting a 16.4 scoring defense thanks to two shutouts. A shutout is difficult in this league, even if the other team is dreadful. The only team that really had its way with the Seahawks defense has been the Colts and that is nothing to be ashamed of. The Seahawks run defense has not been the best, allowing 106.8 yards a game (including a big 200 yard game to Frank Gore). Still, they held the Jaguars, another run heavy team, to 38 yards, so this stat could be heavily influenced by that poor Week 2 performance. Seattle's near future ahs two big division games against the Cardinals, a winnable game in Dallas, and another potential shutout against the Lions. The Seahawks could really turn things around and redefine the NFC West in these next four games if they play some good football. The real decider is the two games against the Cardinals. At 2-3 they need something to propel them to the top of the division and a 6-3 record will do it in this division.
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