Pump the brakes: 3 things we learned from Seattle Seahawks Week 1 loss to the Rams

September 11, 2005 and the Seattle Seahawks are playing the Jacksonville Jaguars. I'm sitting in my living room in West Lafayette, Indiana, waiting for the 2005 NFL season to kick off. It's been a long summer — I'm in a new town, 2,000 miles away from anyone and everyone I know, and I'm finally getting some familiarity for the first time in months.

The Seahawks are wearing their steel blue jerseys for a road game, which I will come to learn is never a good sign. The mercury reads 82 degrees Fahrenheit, but the Seahawks are in Jacksonville, it is still summer, and the on-field temperature is much, much higher due to the humidity.

The Seahawks will go on to turn the ball over five times over the course of the next three hours. They will possess the ball nearly ten fewer minutes of game clock than the host Jaguars. They will rush for fewer than 100 yards in a season where Shaun Alexander alone will approach a number nearly 20 times that.

Maybe Week 1 wasn't as bad for the Seattle Seahawks as it appears

And maybe worst of all, they will end the game on a meaningless strip-sack, fumbling the ball away on a dropback despite being down two scores with less than ten seconds to play. Just in case the rest of the day's results weren't insulting enough, they fumbled away a garbage time play in which the only thing up for grabs was any measure of pride to salvage from one of the worst games the Seahawks played in the Mike Holmgren era.

Clearly, this team was already cooked. Byron Leftwich and Fred Taylor took turns chiffonading the Seahawks' defense, and the offense was prone to 86-ing the football at the worst moments. A heart-breaking overtime loss to Washington three weeks later did nothing to quell those concerns.

Anyone who's been a Seahawks fan long enough to know who Matt Hasselbeck is knows what comes next. The Seahawks rattled off ten straight wins, carved up the rest of the NFC in the playoffs, and made it to the first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history.

Sunday looked rather similar to that fateful four-year anniversary of 9/11 for the Seahawks, dropping a 30-13 result to the Rams, a team most thought they should have beaten handily. The defense couldn't stop a runny nose, the offense gained 3 yards in the second half (no, that is not a typo), and the Rams held the ball literally twice as long as the Seahawks did.

And I know what you're thinking — this fraud hack just spent 350 words comparing this team to the 2005 Super Bowl squad. He can't possibly think the Seahawks are title contenders this year after watching that, can he? And to answer your question, no, I would not put money down on this Seahawks squad against the Eagles or 49ers. Probably not against Detroit next week, either. But it's not worth writing this team off after one week, either. Let me explain.