Seattle Seahawks head coach Jim Mora was pleased with the conditioning of his players in the team’s 20-14 win over the San Diego Chargers on Saturday night. Here’s what he had to say after the game.
“I thought our fitness level was good,” he said. “And I think that allowed us to play fast late in the game. And that’s how we want to be able to play. We want to be in great shape, and we want to be able to play harder, faster and longer than our opponent. And I don’t know if we did that tonight, but that’s our goal.”
TNT columnist Dave Boling says the Seahawks achieved one of their top priorities in keeping quarterback Matt Hasselbeck healthy.
Clare Farnsworth of Seahawks.com provides this report on the game.
A video report from Seahawks.com.
Doug Farrar of Scout.com breaks down the offensive and defensive schematic changes of the Seahawks.
Stats and video of the game from NFL.com.
Peter King of Sports Illustrated, who was a last night’s game, offers some quick thoughts via twitter, saying he thought Aaron Curry looked like he was thinking too much out there. I would agree with that.
ESPN’s Mike Sando says defensive lineman Nick Reed caught his attention.
Danny O’Neil has this feature on Aaron Curry, in which we find out the rookie linebacker and wife Jamila are expecting their first child.
Kevin Acee of the San Diego Tribune says the Chargers’ starters didn’t look bad in their first action of 2009.
San Francisco
Gwen Knapp of the San Francisco Chronicle says quarterbacks Shaun Hill and Alex Smith’s relative success against Denver was a mirage because of the Bronco’s less-then-stellar pass defense.
Matt Maiocco of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat says the 49ers might need to explore their options at running back. Maiocco reports according to a source, running back Thomas Clayton, the team’s leading rusher during the last, two preseasons, sustained major ligament damage in right knee from Friday’s game.
Dan Brown of the San Jose Mercury News reports that head coach Mike Singletary praised the play of right tackle Adam Snyder.
Arizona Cardinals
Kent Somers of the Arizona Republic reports that receiver Steve Breaston had an MRI on his knee after it stiffened up on Thursday. Still no word on the results.
More Somers: Cardinals defense sees some progress after Thursday’s game against Pittsburgh.
Darren Urban of azcardinals.com offers some notes from head coach Ken Whisenhunt’s post-game press conference.
St. Louis Rams
Samkon Gado’s 77-yard run boosts his stock in the race to back-up Stephen Jackson, according to Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Bill Coats of the Post-Dispatch says defensive end Leonard Little set the tone for the team’s 23-20 win over the jets with an early sack.
Totally unrelated, but did you all see the in-game interview with Seneca? What I read b/w the lines is that he’s going to get a few chances to make some plays during a few regular season games. Am I off, or did any of you sense that too?
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I saw that. He was pretty coy with his answer. I don’t know what to make of it, but I’ll say this: should Teel build on his performance last night, for the remaining 3 games, they’ll certainly feel more comfortable using him in creative ways. Already this staff has shown they aren’t afraid to experiment. Tapp dropped back into coverage several times last night, after all.
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Seems odd that Seneca would suggest they may throw in some wrinkles that feature him as part of the offense when we haven’t heard anything about it in the training reports so far (at least I haven’t). Maybe that wide receiver pass that featured Housh will ultimately end up being Seneca? Wouldn’t be hard to pick up on that as a defense, though.
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Devin Moore deserves more pub. The kid has looked great at training camp and was the best runner on the Hawks last night. This was not a one-time thing.
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Not to go all John Morgan on you guys, but I thought this was a really cool look at Max Unger zone blocking on the touchdown pass from Teel to Hass:
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Denied. Let’s try that again:
http://imgur.com/5eJYi.gif
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Go Morgan anytime, that was an awesome clip!
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Weekend at Bernie, that was an awesome clip. Talking about keeping your head on a swivel! Would have been nice if he’d flattened someone as well!
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Everyone keeps mentioning the WRs, and how competitive this corps will be for those last few spots on the roster. I hope that if Butler does make the team he made it because he beat out all the other guys. I don’t want him making it just because he was a 3rd round draft pick. I thought Tayler looked pretty good last night, and a few of the others made some nice catches.
I also don’t think we should beat up on Butler too much for his punt returning. Remember, that was he first experience with that.
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Bernie42 – Where did you find that clip?
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Sorry but I really think that Butler is on the team whether or not he is one of the best receivers this year or not.
On the bright side he does have what you cant teach SPEED!!! and when he did take that big hit the other night he not only popped right up but went after the ball and tried to finish the play –
gotta like that!!
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xcman,
Unfortunately, I think you’re right. However, I will admit that Butler has shown some good signs of brillance that I hope will turn into consistant play making ability. In the end I don’t care who throws the ball, who catches it, or who’s playing on defense. All I care about is that we win!
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I was watching the NFL Films recap of the game over at seahawks.com and couldn’t help but notice Unger looking so aware in the middle, and then saw that it was the same play as Hass’ TD reception. I took that little portion and turned it into an animated image to share with people here.
Glad to hear I wasn’t the only one who found it interesting.
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It wasn’t just the way Unger had his head on a swivel, it was his footwork…He was more than ready to move anywhere at any time…and I saw him doing that on several plays…He’s gonna be a stud:)
As far as Seneca’s interview, did it occour to anyone that he just might have been throwing out a red herring, for the benefit of other teams who were surely watching? Give them something to think about, and a little something extra to plan for. If we have some blow outs early in the season, and they give Teel some garbage time, and he looks good, then maybe, later in the season, they might do a little sumptin’ sumptin’, or perhaps they’ll just save it for the playoffs…
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Absolutely. NO ONE was getting to Teel on his watch.
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I’m not an OL expert, so please take this with a grain of salt. Unger looked fine on passing downs, but he seemed to be lost a bit on runs. On more than 1 occasion where the DL made contact with our backs in the backfield, it was Unger who let the guy through. He was notabley unremarkable to me in pass blocking, which is good. (I don’t remember seeing him get beat)
just my casual observation
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I’m not sure if I should be surprised or not that Julius Jones still gets no love on the tnt blog. He ran well Saturday, 6 and 8 yards against a tough SD team. I think we’ll see some great runs from him this season.
/just want to be THE frontrunner for the JJ fan club.
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Teel looked poised despite some poor throws.
Mebane was a beast.
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If you go back to the comments last season when Mo Morris was hurt, there were people who said Jones looked good. He’s not worthless and can get the job done behind a decent offensive line. It’s just that no matter what, he’s not a top 15 type of RB. There’s probably 15-20 other RBs in the NFL that I’d rather have.
verax – while I think Unger did a very good job and am very pleased with his initial performance, you’re right about him getting pushed a bit at times in the running game. Still, he’s going to be fine and I think he’s going to make a couple of Pro Bowls before his career is over.
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