KIRKLAND – As a former college teammate of quarterback Philip Rivers at North Carolina State, Seattle Seahawks lineman Sean Locklear has spent a couple of his free Sundays watching the San Diego Chargers on television.
What he’s seen is a near replay of the 2005 Seahawks season.
Oh, how long ago that seems.
“That’s the million-dollar question right now: What’s the difference from last year?” Locklear said as the Seahawks, mired in a two-game losing streak, prepared for Sunday’s game against the 12-2 Chargers. “It’s hard to pinpoint.
“It’s little things, big things, a mixture of both. Obviously, we haven’t put our finger on it yet because we’re not there. It’s not like we’re bad, but we’re not where we were last season.”
And the Chargers are. In the midst of an eight-game winning streak, and with the No. 1 seed in the AFC all but wrapped up, San Diego is having the kind of season that the Seahawks (8-6) can only sit back and envy.
“You can’t be perfect all the time,” Seahawks cornerback Marcus Trufant said. “You work hard in practice every day to try to correct things and get better. Slowly but surely, it’s happening. We’ve just got to get some things cleaned up.”
This time last year, the Seahawks were riding high – much like this year’s Chargers are. Seattle was on the verge of extending its franchise-record winning streak to 11 games. The Seahawks were on their way to a 13-3 season and first-ever trip to the Super Bowl.
Now, they’re trying to hang on for dear life, needing a win or a San Francisco loss over the final two weeks just to win the NFC West.
And no one seems to have any answers.
“If I could tell you,” defensive end Grant Wistrom said, “we’d fix it.”
Coach Mike Holmgren spent part of the past six days off evaluating this year’s team. What he found was an inconsistent unit that doesn’t have a sum as great as its individual parts.
“It’s nothing attitude-wise,” he said during his Wednesday press conference. “It’s not the curse of the Super Bowl loser. It’s not any of that stuff.
“It’s what always either wins football games or loses football game for you: fumbles, turnovers, penalties -football.”
As befuddled as the Seahawks are, the Chargers keep floating on above the problems that plague most NFL teams. Like the 2006 Seahawks were, the Chargers are on top of the world.
“We were building a team,” said LaDainian Tomlinson, San Diego’s record-setting running back, “and now it is coming together for us.”
Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer, who has seen plenty of seasons go the other way during his 19 years as an NFL head coach, can appreciate a season like this more than most. Citing the salary cap and free agency, Schottenheimer said that the league is “designed to make everybody 8-8,” but added that the pieces have fallen into place for this year’s Chargers.
“I’ve always believed that there’s an element there, the football gods, and they kind of make some decisions that you don’t have a whole lot of control over,” Schottenheimer said during his conference call with Seattle reporters on Wednesday. “… At the end of the day, I think it’s a matter of taking the things that you believe in and working diligently each day to be the best you can be at that point in time.”
The Chargers have been getting all the right bounces this year. And those players who were on the 2005 Seahawks can’t help but remember when the same was happening to them.
And wonder why this year has been a different story.
“There are going to be years like this,” Locklear said. “I would love to say that we’re going to go 14-2 or 13-3 every year, but it’s not going to happen.
“But our ultimate goal is to get to the playoffs and go from there, like Pittsburgh did last year. They won three road games (in the playoffs) and won a Super Bowl. It’s there for the taking. We just have to take advantage of our opportunities.”
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