ARLINGTON, Texas — The rash of early season injuries are no longer a legitimate excuse for the Seattle Seahawks sputtering offense.
“I’m so sick of talking about injures,” Seahawks head coach Jim Mora said. “We’ve got to become consistent.”
Yes, the team’s best offensive lineman, Walter Jones is done for the season. And his replacement, offensive tackle Sean Locklear, remains out with a high ankle sprain. But the majority of the team’s starting unit still is intact, yet Seattle cannot sustain any rhythm offensively.
The Seahawks fumbled twice, including a giveaway by running back Justin Forsett that led to a Dallas touchdown in the first half. And two other breakdowns by the interior of the offensive line resulted in Matt Hasselbeck being sacked twice, stalling drives.
Other than those miscues, the offensive moved the ball at times against a stout Dallas defense, totaling 308 total yards.
“We were moving the ball, but we were stopping ourselves,” said wide receiver Nate Burleson, who fumbled late in the game with the contest already decided. “And that’s what we kept saying on the sidelines. We got points the first drive. We had the fumble on the second drive. We just need to keep playing our ball and keep putting points on the board.”
Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said the mistakes are even more frustrating because they are correctable miscues that the team should not be making this late in the season.
“We just had some assignment errors, letting guys come up through the ’A’ gap, through the ’B’ gap untouched,” Hasselbeck said. “Those are situations where we could have converted, but the opposite happened. And then obviously the turnovers, the fumbles, the field position — that kind of stuff — you just can’t do that when you’re behind already.”
Seattle had wanted to get off to a quick start, but the Seahawks found themselves trailing again on the road for the third time this season, down 21-10 at halftime.
“We’ve been playing from behind the last three weeks, and that’s why we put so much emphasis on starting fast and getting that first score,” said offensive tackle Rob Sims. “Fortunately we went down there and got three, but seven would have been a lot better against this team.”
Even with all of the fumbles, missed assignments and uneven play, Hasselbeck put the team’s struggles offensively in simple terms.
“At the end of the day they scored a lot more points than we did, and that’s what matters,” Hasselbeck said.
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Posted in Sports on Monday, November 2, 2009 12:00 am
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