Coming into Cleveland Browns Stadium this afternoon stirred memories of the Seahawks’ last trip here.
The thing that I remember most of that weekend was that I flew back out of Cleveland the following morning … 9/10 2001. The morning after that, of course, many things changed.
It was a fairly new stadium back then. And it was more remarkable from a Seahawks’ historical standpoint as Matt Hasselbeck’s first NFL start.
The Seahawks had a tough time beating the 49ers in San Francisco last season. DT Rocky Bernard had two sacks and Seattle stuffed a two-point conversion try to prevail, 27-25. I’ll include my game-in-review box from that game as a refresher.
The Seattle Times has a fun story today about Mike Holmgren’s early days in coaching. It provides a good opportunity to dredge up the stories we wrote when Holmgren first came to Seattle as Seahawks coach in 1999. I spent a couple months researching his past. We broke it out into a main story and stories about the 22-game losing streak one of his old teams endured, his sometimes well-hidden lighter side, his
This Jordan Babineaux move reminded me of another one Seattle made several years ago, also after six games. Back when the Hawks gave up big plays out of habit (think 2000), coaches benched Reggie Tongue in favor of Kerry Joseph. The parallels are obvious to me. Tongue was a second-round pick (58th overall). Michael Boulware, the man Babineaux is replacing, was a second-rounder (53rd overall). Babineaux was an undrafted free agent from Division II Southern Arkansas. Joseph was an undrafted free agent from Division I-AA McNeese State. The similarities stop there. That 2000 Seattle defense went out the next week and allowed 498 yards during a loss to Indianapolis at Husky Stadium. This Seattle defense is much better all the way around. Those of you into pain can read my 2000 Joseph-for-Tongue story below. One other funny note: In addition to the Tongue benching, Holmgren also made a move on the offensive line that week. He benched RT Todd Weiner in favor of Chris McIntosh.