Takeoff time for Seahawks

KIRKLAND, Wash. – Everyone waits, some more patiently than others.

The fans, the media, the coaches, the players – they’re all playing the same waiting game.

Now that Matt Hasselbeck and Shaun Alexander are back from injuries, and with a few games under their belts, the Seattle Seahawks offense is going to take off.

One of these weeks.

Isn’t it?

“There are glimpses of it,” offensive coordinator Gil Haskell said. “You go, ‘Oh, boy, here we go.’ “

But rarely have the glimpses connected together to form an entire scene.

“That’s the crazy thing about our offense,” Alexander said. “At times you see it, but … at times you don’t.”

Thirteen games into the 2006 season, the Seattle offense is still trying to find its groove. Injuries and inconsistency have plagued this unit all season long.

With just three weeks left in the regular season, beginning with tonight’s game against the San Francisco 49ers, time is running out on the Seahawks.

“We’ve got to find a way, these last three games and into the playoffs, for it to really start hitting on all cylinders,” Alexander said.

The easy answer is that injuries have hampered the offense’s progress. Only four offensive starters – fullback Mack Strong, wide receiver Darrell Jackson, tackle Walter Jones and guard Chris Gray – have played in all 13 games this season. Jackson will be eliminated from that list tonight, when he’s expected to sit out the game because of turf toe.

The projected 11 offensive starters have yet to play a game together this season.

“The frustration and the uncertainty, more than how they’re going to play, is who was going to play,” coach Mike Holmgren said. “That has had an impact on us.”

But it goes deeper than that. Seattle has failed to get off to good starts, and turnovers have too often stunted their rhythm.

“Last year we were really good in our turnover ratio,” quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said, referring to Seattle’s plus-10 margin. “And this year we’re kind of losing that battle (minus-5). That’s the easy stuff right there.”

During their 2005 run to the Super Bowl, the Seahawks were also known for quick starts. They scored on the opening possession in nine of their 16 regular-season games, with only two of those drives ending in turnovers.

This year has been a different story, with only four opening possessions resulting in touchdowns. Three times in the past five weeks alone, the Seahawks have turned the ball over on their opening possession. They haven’t scored on their opening drive since the Nov. 6 win over Oakland.

“Penalties, turnovers and our first-quarter drives have hurt us,” Alexander said. “Instead of us being up 14 or 10 to nothing at the beginning of a game, we’re usually down 10-0. And it’s because of a penalty and a punt or a turnover. That’s just football. As soon as we figure that out, we’re going to be OK.”

As far as the genesis of the problem, Alexander is among those who think that injuries have affected the offensive chemistry.

“Guys had been playing together for so long – we were together for three or four years, and you got to see the fruits of it,” he said. “And then this year, it’s been injury. We’re not making excuses, we’re happy where we are, but we’ve got to bring this chemistry back up.”

While the statistics haven’t shown it – the Seahawks rank 21st in the NFL in yards allowed, 19 spots lower than where they finished the 2005 season – there are subtle signs that the breakout game might be well within reach.

“You look at the last game, and we had the four (fumbles),” Haskell said, referring to Sunday’s 27-21 loss to Arizona. “If we didn’t have those, we would have had a good football game and been right on schedule.”

The original schedule was for the offense to pick up right where it left off last season.

That didn’t happen, so now the 2006 Seahawks will take it whenever they can get it.

“It’s coming,” Haskell said. “I see it coming, and it’s coming at the right time.”

Notes

The Seahawks will clinch the NFC West title with a win tonight. If San Francisco (5-8) wins, it stays alive because its head-to-head sweep would win the tiebreaker in the event of both teams finishing with identical 8-8 records. … Holmgren said defensive tackle Rocky Bernard (foot) would play even though he did not practice at all this week. … The Seahawks have played only two Thursday games in franchise history. They are 1-1.