Seahawks’ Clemons is NFC defensive player of the week

What’s this? Something about the Seahawks that has nothing to do with Golden Tate’s catch at the end of the game? Indeed it is.

Lost amid all this controversy is the fact that the Seahawks defense played pretty darn well, and was incredibly good in the first half. Leading the way was defensive end Chris Clemons, who had four of Seattle’s eight first-half sacks. And for that effort, Clemons has been named the NFC’s defensive player of the week.

“Going into it this week, we knew that Aaron would hold onto the ball,” Clemons said, noting that Matt Flynn did a good job in practice simulating the way Aaron Rodgers likes to move in the pocket, “The DBs did a tremendous job of covering them, and we just continued to get after him the whole first half.”

Clemons also gave credit to rookie Bruce Irivin, who had two sacks early, which led to more blocking attention moving towards Irvin and away from other pass-rushers.

“Him starting the game off,” Clemons said. “I told him early in the year ,just continue to do what you do and they’ll come. First half, they tried to block him man-to-man, and I don’t think anybody in the league can block him man-to-man.”