Forget the term “bouncing back”. It doesn’t apply here. For, to talk about this Seattle Seahawks team “bouncing back” is to give relevance to last season’s 4-12 disaster. And last season really isn’t relevant. An epidemic of injuries ruined everything. Last season, Seattle’s quarterback battled a bulging disc in his lower back. The receiving corps was more depleted than Michael Richards’s fan base; at one point, the top six wideouts were all hurt. By the time the leaves had fallen, Seattle’s offensive line was without its starting left tackle and both guards. And the defense had lost its top pass-rusher.

The only bright spot about 2008 for head coach Mike Holmgren was that it validated the wisdom behind his decision to take a sabbatical. Now, per owner Paul Allen and GM Tim Ruskell’s original plan, secondary coach Jim Mora, Jr. assumes Holmgren’s top position. Mora has been in this position before. In 2004, he took over a talented Falcons team that had fallen flat on its face the previous year due to a rash of injuries (most notably a broken leg to quarterback Michael Vick). Mora led those Falcons to an 11-5 record and the NFC Title Game. Of course, he also limped to a 15-17 record over the following two seasons and was fired.

There are plenty of critics who foresee that same kind of mediocrity happening here. They might question the creativeness of Mora’s top assistants. Offensive coordinator Greg Knapp is installing a West Coast system that was productive in San Francisco but, more recently, yielded middling results in Atlanta and Oakland. Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley is implementing a fairly straightforward Cover 2. Then there are those who look at Mora himself and note that, under his direction, Seattle’s secondary last season gave up the most passing yards in all of football. That’s tough to do when your team’s offense almost never forced opponents to play from behind.

But most schemes, especially traditional ones like those found here, are as effective as the players executing them. And, unlike last season, Seattle actually has respectable players this year. Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck once again has a strong lower back. At 34 (in September), he remains in his prime. Hasselbeck has receiving options, too. Nate Burleson is back from a torn ACL, and Deion Branch’s Achilles heel problems are a thing of the past. On top of those two, Ruskell shelled out $15 million in guarantees to lure accomplished possession receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Plus, he spent a third-round pick on Penn State receiver Deon Butler, who is expected to fill the slot as Bobby Engram 2.0 (Engram, Hasselbeck’s favorite target, went to Kansas City to finish out his career).

The health of the offensive line is less certain. All-World left tackle Walter Jones is 35 and coming off December microfracture surgery. But the interior of the line is healthy and stabilized with the addition of second-round rookie Max Unger.

All-in-all, the Seahawks have an offense respectable enough to take the stress off a defense that, with the return of end Patrick Kerney, plus the additions of Cory Redding and Colin Cole, should be better on the front line. Also augmenting the front seven is the ostensible development of young defensive linemen Brandon Mebane, Baraka Atkins and Lawrence Jackson, and the arrival of No. 4 overall pick Aaron Curry (strongside linebacker).

In short, this Seahawks team is no less talented than the ones that made up the franchise’s five-year playoff streak (’03-’07). (And that might even include the NFC Champion ’05 squad.) But no one seems to recognize this. Preseason prognosticators are drinking the Cardinal Kool-Aid. League and television executives scheduled zero primetime games for Seattle––something that hasn’t happened since 1983. Fans in the Pacific Northwest are showing cautious optimism––almost as if the Twelfth Man has become the Eleventh-and-a-Half Man.

That’s understandable. After all, this club is talented, but it’s also capable of laying another egg in ’09. If injuries persist or key players fail to regain their edge––or if Mora simply can’t maintain Holmgren’s level of excellence––the organization will find itself neck-deep in a rebuilding effort it wasn’t prepared for. This means the future remains Now for the Seahawks.

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