Yuengling, Chicken Wings and Home Field Advantage!

First of all, let me say HOLY FREAKING SCHNIKEES BATMAN...WHAT A FREAKING GAME??!!!

Second, let me say I'm really sorry not to be on the gameday chat thingy agonizing along with you guys, but let me set the stage for you. Me and SimpleHawk got together in a dive bar in a small town with an incredibly beautiful bartender named Rachel, the chicken wings were on special, and there was an obnoxious giants fan two stools down from us, who was a woman who went 315lbs if she weighed an ounce.
(GOX, I think you own several naked pictures of her!!!)

Anyhow, the Yuenglings were flowing, the wings were on special and me and Simple were as obnoxious as to grown men can be in public without getting yourselves thrown out. The bar was packed with Giants fans, most of whom "got" our good natured schtick, and a couple of Cowgirl fans who were sympathetic to our cause, but this ignorant woman just wanted a piece of us.

This is our usual Wednesday night watering hole after our golf league, so the bartenders and a few of the regulars knew me, so I knew we could get away with pushing the envelope. As a matter of fact, Rachel (man she's good looking) came over a few times to warn us about getting "Jabba the Giants Fan" riled up, as I guess she's a regular with a pretty bad drinking problem, and just as bad of an anger management issue. Of course, this was just more ammo for our arsenal, as Simple and I just reveled in yanking her chain. I told Rachel, "don't worry, I seen that movie and I don't want to wind up chained to Jabba in nothing but a sting bikini" which was a disturbing mental image, but she understood.

She called me a F*cking Dickhead (or something like that) and us "losers" among other things, but we wouldn't be deterred. As a matter of fact, as things were looking bleak in the 4th quarter, and the Seahawks were giving up 3rd downs like they were snickers on Halloween, Simple and I were high-fiving and shouting "4 more downs, 4 more downs!" indicating that we were psyched to see our defense play some more.

Anyhow, the only thing better than the Seahawk win, after THREE failed Giant field goal attempts to win the sucker, was watching the fat, old ugly barfly try to preserve whatever shred of dignity she may have come up with by calling us LOSERS as she left the bar. The question wasn't rhetorical, but when we asked "what is a team that loses to LOSERS called", she didn't provide an answer.

Now, on to this week's Moonlight Graham Award presentation.

The NY Giants must have felt like they were Jamie Lee Curtis and we were the infamous Michael Myers, as every time they were SURE they had us killed, we rose up and found a way to continue to haunt them until we could finish them off. However, anyone who has 6 or 7 major studio sequels to their name cannot be considered coming out of obscurity. Coming out of the woods with a bloody butcher knife maybe, but not obscurity!

From what I can remember between the yelling, Yuenglings and chicken wings, MGA consideration must go to Joe Juriviscius, Josh Brown and Michael Boulware. However, JJ has a superbowl ring, so he can't be considered, Josh Brown has been money since the Washington game so he's out, and last year Michael Boulware could have racked up a half dozen MGAs, but he's a known entity now.

So, before I get to this week's recipient, I need to say, that second Shockey catch was NOT A TOUCH DOWN. Last I checked, a receiver needs to get TWO feet in bounds for it to be a catch, whether you're in the middle of the end zone or on the sidelines. He clearly got one foot down, and then was ROCKED with a viscious hit, which dislodged the ball, but never got his second foot down. We was ROBBED on that one. (figures)

That all being said, this week's MGA goes to D.J. Hackett. The dude has been playing his heart out trying to earn some "alba love" and kept coming up a little short in the recent weeks. While he only had two catches for 47 yards, making him the second leading receiver on the team, none was bigger than his 38 yard reception with 6:00 left in overtime on second-and-21. That set up 4 Shaun Alexander runs, to pad his stats and get him is 100 yard game, and then a Josh Brown 36 yard chip shot to win it.

Much like my fellow bar patron, it wasn't pretty, as a matter of fact it was down right ugly, but it's a W just the same, and we'll just have to clinch the division next week. (freaking Texans can't hold a 10 point 4th quarter lead...who do they think they are, the 2004 Seahawks??!!)

Sure the media pundits will say we should have lost that game, so at 9-2 will go back safely under the radar, leaving them to fawn over the likes of the Bears, Panthers and Falcons, and maybe after we kick Philly's ass at the Vet next week, they'll start to take notice.






(Leave Comments on Lead-In Post at 12SS Home)

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!"




(Leave Comments on Lead-In Post at 12SS Home)

Make-Up Call

This is a make up call.

You know, like when the refs blow a call, and know it, but know they can't reverse their ruling. So a few plays later, they call a touch foul on the opposition to make up for it, and the game goes on.
(like what the refs should have done for us after missing the PI call on Stevens which lead to Matt's first INT)

Last week, I admittedly didn't pay that close attention to the game, so I didn't have enough material to specify an individual effort of someone stepping out of obscurity, so I gave the MGA to Mike Holmgren and the entire team, for finally breaking the bye-week curse.

After reading the comments, and the newspaper reports of the Cardinal game, I think I slighted Marquand Manuel by not giving him the award last week, which seemed to bring additional inspiration to his play in the Rams game.

While the Rams seemed to be running through would-be Seahawks tacklers, like a canned beverage ran through Shaun Alexander last week, there was Marquand Manuel sticking his head in, wrapping up, and driving guys to the ground. Last week he was the leading tackler, this week he was 1.5 tackles behind Lofa, with 8 solo tackles.

And he was around the ball all day long, harrassing the Ram receivers and nearly picking off a late game pass from Mark Bulger.

He fought like hell to even MAKE this team, and then was forced to step in for our inspirational leader on defense, and has all but filled the shoes of Ken Hamlin with pride and dignity. So for this level of sustained effort, this week's Moonlight Graham Award goes to Marquand Manuel.

Since I don't like to give out multiple awards, D.J. Hackett will have to settle for first-runner up status, as he also stepped up HUGE in this game, with 78 yard and a TD, numbers good enough to make him our leading receiver, even though he only caught two passes. Effort like this from our reserve receivers has really supplied ballast to this ship while we're waiting for Engram and Jackson to heal up.

Keep up the good work D.J., and with a breakout game in San Francisco, you too could be basking in the Moonlight of an MGA, which will be personally awarded in post-game on-field festivities, since I'll be in Monster Park for the game.

(Leave Comments on Lead-In Post at 12SS Home)

BYE-BYE LOVE!

When we headed into the BYE week, knowing there would be a dark Monday with no Contributor Awards, I thought about suggesting a mid-year review, where we would hand out each of the awards for the best accomplishment of the year so far.

Well, that obviously didn't happen, but as I sat down to write this week's Moonlight Graham Award, it kind of unfolded that way.

The Week 7 MGA winner, Ryan Hannam had only one catch for 8 yards, but threw some outstanding blocks to contribute to the running game. Jerheme Urban, our Week 6 MGA winner, had only one grab, but it was good for 46 yards, making him the game's leading receiver, and sustained one of our scoring drives. One of Week 5's co-winners was Jordan Babineaux, who today had 4 tackles, 1 assist, 1 interception and another recovered fumble on special teams.

In week 3, Josh Scobey not only picked up an MGA, but a nickname as well. "12:30" finally had a huge kickoff return that wasn't nullified by the "yellow hankie of death", breaking off a 53 yarder in the second half to set up the Seahawks deep in Cardinal territory.

In Week #2, the MGA was shared by the entire Seahawks Defense, for keeping Michael Vick in check in the Falcons game. While not even Brenda could confuse Kurt Warner for Michael Vick, the Seahawks defense once again denied the opponent a 100 yard rusher, picked off 3 Warner passes, and held the Cards to FGs whenever they got deep within Seahawks' territory.

Admittedly, I was not watching the game as closely as I should have this week, being on "daddy duty" and knocking off some household chores as I viewed, but I do remember seeing D.J. Hackett throwing some key blocked, Maurice Morris breaking off some big runs while Shaun was "dropping the kiddies off at the pool", and Marquand Manuel stepping up HUGE in Hammer's absence, leading the team with 9 tackles and 3 assists, and just constantly being around the ball.

But the story of the day was the TEAM, more specifically, the TEAM stripping yet another hairy-asssed monkey off of its back with a huge win AFTER THE BYE WEEK, on the ROAD, against a Divisional Oppenent, that we were SUPPOSED to beat!

Last year, that was all the ingredients for "Seahawks Self-Destruction Surprise", but this there's a new Executive Chef running the kitchen, and mixing that stuff together just a little differently results in Divisional Domination Decadence - - - which is "Just Desserts" for this Seattle club.

So this week's Moonlight Graham award, which is given to someone who steps out of obscurity with an outstanding performance goes too.....Head Coach Mike Holmgren, who was previously 0-6 after the BYE week!

While he has been to the Superbowl countless times with previous teams, winning it once as the head man in Green Bay, he certainly has been toiling in obscurity since he arrived in Seattle, and this game-after-the-bye-week record is a perfect indication of the lack of focus and execution of previous Seahawk teams under Holmgren.

However, this year he has been leading by example, changing his focus to concentrate more on establishing the run, and executing his offensive schemes to perfection. He even mixed things up by giving the team the entire BYE week off, which means he's really rejecting the status quo and leveraging opportunity to the advantage of this team.

So Coach, strap on your helmet, crank up your Harley, and take a Moonlight ride to Albany so you can pick up your rightfully earned Moonlight Graham Award for Week 9.

(Leave Comments on Lead-In Post at 12SS Home)