The ex-Seahawk report

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I spent much of Sunday morning monitoring the play of ex-Seahawks in the early games.

Seneca Wallace did not play well enough to spark a quarterback controversy in Cleveland. His stats were almost identical to Delhomme’s from the previous week: roughly 50 completion percentage, about 230 yards passing, and one touchdown pass, comprising half of the 14 points the offense scored. Delhomme threw two picks in Week One, while Wallace threw only one last Sunday, though it was a pick six. The Chiefs sacked Seneca once, but the Bucs never got to Delhomme. (Nice work in both games, Chop!) Neither quarterback rushed for significant yardage. The Browns narrowly lost both contests. Poor Cleveland. For their sake, I hope the Holmgren magic doesn’t take as long to work there as it did in Seattle.

The biggest surprise among the many ex-Seahawks who play for the Lions was the performance by Rob Sims. Since he failed to impress in Seattle, I did not expect to see Sims starting at left guard. Detroit’s depth chart had him listed as a reserve. But there he was, pulling nimbly and blasting open holes for Jahvid Best, who racked up 78 yards and scored two touchdowns. Detroit had managed only 20 yards on the ground against Chicago in Week One, so gaining more than 100 rushing yards on Sunday was a real achievement.

Detroit largely abandoned the run and threw a lot in an effort to catch up to Philadelphia, but the Eagles secondary essentially erased Nate “Recepticon“ Burleson, limiting him to one catch for a gain of 4 yards. Perhaps he should change his nickname to “Receptinot.” To be fair, Philadelphia also contained Calvin “Megatron” Johnson (4 catches, 50 yards, 1 TD); Detroit gained more than 300 yards through the air, but most of that total came from underneath passes to Pettigrew, the tight end, and Jahvid Best, the tailback. Mo Morris did little, carrying three times for only 8 yards.

Julian Peterson appears to have lost a step. He made only one tackle. One thing that doesn’t show up in the box score: In the first quarter, while rushing Mike Vick, Peterson batted at a ball and—on his follow-through—accidentally whacked the helmet of the former dog killer. For this, Peterson drew a penalty for an illegal blow to the head.

On the other side of the ball, former Seattle fullback Owen Schmitt caught a couple of passes in his Eagles debut. Schmitt—picked up by Philadelphia to replace the injured Leonard Weaver, also an ex-Seahawk—saw limited action at fullback, as the Eagles employed a spread formation with multiple wide receivers for most of the game. Still he threw a few nice blocks and helped LeSean McCoy earn some of his yards in a breakout game.

I didn’t see the Ravens-Bengals contest, but I have read about it. Somehow, TJ Houshmandzadeh managed to have a worse game than Mike Williams. By his own account, Housh singlehandedly lost the game for the Ravens. TJ quoth, "We lost, but in my opinion, I recall three plays that I should have made…,If I just make a couple of those, we win. So I would say it's my fault."  Indeed, Flacco targeted Housh six times; the receiver dropped three of those balls, and caught none of them, and the Ravens loss to the Bengals was close enough that a couple of plays might have made the difference.

Josh Wilson neither returned a kick nor registered any defensive statistic for the Ravens.

It is too early to tell whether the modest production of ex-Seahawks confirms the decisions to release these players. This is particularly true with Schmitt, Housh and Wilson, who need time to acclimate to their new teams.