Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Holmgren Years: A Retrospective: 2000


This season was brutal. It was the year Jon Kitna completely lost his confidence. It was the year the defense officially went from experienced, to ancient, and it was the first year playing in Husky Stadium. The terrible weather(two non rainy games all season) and horrific traffic issue caused for non existant crowds.


Any buzz from the playoff season the year before was ruined with Jon Kitna's five INT stinkbomb in week 1 at Miami. They actually played three good games in a row after that, losing to the Rams at the last second and beating the Saints(playoff bound) and the equally atrocious Chargers. They took a 2-2 record into Kansas City for a Monday Night game, had a 17-7 fourth quarter lead, blew it, and embarked on a five game losing streak.


The season wasn't all bad, it was Shaun Alexander's rookie year and he ripped off a few big runs to wet everyones appetite. Ricky Watters was a gamer, and busted his ass every play of every game despite dealing with a shaky offensive line. Darrell Jackson was also a rookie and was third on the team in receptions, showing great promise despite occasional dropsies.


They managed to shock the Raiders despite being behind 11 in the fourth quarter and enduring monsoon like weather and were on pace at finishing a respectable 7-9 before getting scalded by the Bills on the last night of the season.


The real story was the defense. 30th in large allowed, gave up nearly 5 yards a carry, gave up 200 yards rushing multiple times, 499+ three times. Sinclair was finished, Tez was finished. Lamar King sucked. George Kounce couldn't move. The secondary gave up nearly 4000 yards passing. This defense was the worst I'd seen in Seahawks history. An absolute swinging gate with a defensive line as resistant as a wet paper towel.


Doug Flutie managed a perfect quarterback rating against them in a rainstorm.


Next up: 2001: A much better, tougher, and quite often, forgotten team.

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