Many Happy Returns

Since several other contributors shunned the opportunity to consider me for their award, give the fact that I was in attendance at the game, being a well documented glory-whore, I'm compelled to submit my own name for this week's Moonlight Graham Award.

Making the cross country trek to the game, representing in the stands with Seahawks gear, and posting great pix of the players and cheerleaders could definitely be considered "stepping up and out of obscurity" for dear old Alba. However, given the fact that the travel was paid for, I worked in a family visit, and I forgot to bring the freaking Pay $haun Now sign to the game, even I can't justify giving the award to me!

From being at the game, it was hard to really identify good candidates for the MGA this week, so I wanted to wait until I could review the game tape before posting the award. So, like an idiot, I stayed up until 1:45am watching the game last night. (of course, I was really interested to see if I got on TV at all...I didn't)

I had a hunch that Marquand Manuel, D.J. Hackett and Josh Scobey would be candidates, and saw a lot of stuff on the tape to support any of them. Honorable mention must go to Niko Koutouvides, a pre-draft favorite for the starting middle linebacker spot, who was finally activated for a regular season game, and saw some action on special teams.

D.J.Hackett is quickly establishing himself as a deep threat to be recogned with, and a sure handed receiver. However, there were a couple of dropped passes, and he had that long bomb in his grasp before it was knocked out by the SF linebacker, so this wasn't his most outstanding outing of the year.

It's well documented that I have an unhealthy man-crush on Josh Scobey, who once again exhibited his north-and-south running style for positive kick return yards, setting up the offense with good field position when not negated by foolish penalties. He also continued his run of sure-handed returns, showing that the opening day fumble was more the exception rather than the rule. Add to that the Scobey recovery of the fumble we forced on punt coverage, and Mr. 12:30 is again a finalist for this week's MGA award.

Marquand Manuel had another solid game, and has really made the loss of The Hammer a lot easier to handle. Going up and getting that on-side kick was HUGE (unlike Jerheme Urban waiting for the ball to come to him in last year's Cowboy game) However, the forced fumble that was originally credited to him on the punt was actually initiated by Jimmy Williams, who is a surprise finalist for this week's award. Williams also had a good day on punt returns, and did his part to help the Seahawks beat his former team.

So once again we have co-winners of the MGA award, and they go to two guys who are trying their best to make our special teams special, Josh Scobey and Jimmy Williams. Enjoy this recognition and your time in the moonlight, because the Seahawk faithful are looking to you both for "many happy returns!"




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