Steve Kelley / Times staff columnist
Run stuffer gets earful from Hawks

ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES Second-year defensive tackle Rashad Moore (95) navigates his way around lineman Jerry Wunsch during yesterday's Seahawks scrimmage at PGE Park in Portland.

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PORTLAND — The sophomore jinx.

The Seahawks coaches whisper the threat of it to Rashad Moore in meetings. They holler about it on the practice field. They use the possibility of it to push him through the summer drudgery of two-a-days in Cheney.

The sophomore jinx.

It is the fear factor the team has used this preseason to keep Moore focused, to make sure he doesn't fall into some of the bad habits that hounded him in college at Tennessee.

It is the muse that is expected to make defensive tackle Moore, the surprise of last season, even better this season.

Beware the sophomore jinx.

"Everybody keeps hollerin' at me about the sophomore jinx, sophomore slump or whatever," Moore said. "I'm playing off that, just coming out here trying to do my job. I'm working hard trying to get nothing but better. That's all."

He came to the Seahawks last year, all promise and no portfolio, a sixth-round pick with first-round potential.

"He was a longshot to make the team, definitely on the bubble," coach Mike Holmgren said after yesterday's controlled scrimmage at PGE Park.

There were questions coming out of college about his work ethic. The book on him was that, in games and in practices, he took plays off.
 
And Seahawks coaches decided the way to rid him of that habit was to ride roughshod on him. He was one of defensive coordinator Ray Rhodes' pet projects. The subject of Rhodes' biting wit and raging wrath.

Certainly there were practices when Moore wished Rhodes would take a day off from the steady drip, drip, drip of sarcasm-laced instruction, wished Rhodes would contract a case of laryngitis. But Moore didn't cower in front of his coach. He listened and learned.

"It was hard for me last year with Ray on me all the time," Moore said, "but then I had to understand why he was. He saw what was in me and what I could do and he was just trying to bring that out of me. And he was going to do whatever it took to bring it out, and I can't blame him for that.

"Being drafted in the sixth round I knew coming in I was going to have to work extra hard to stay on this team. And do this and that. I never asked for a day off. I never would. I just tried to get the job done."

Week by week, remarkably quickly, Moore matured into a defensive threat. He became the steal of the 2003 draft.

In 2002, the Seahawks defense allowed 10 running backs to rush for more than 100 yards. Last year, in part because of Moore, they allowed only four 100-yard games. Splitting time with John Randle, Moore started six games.

"He had a pretty good offseason. Reported in good shape. And now, that sophomore jinx, I hope it doesn't happen to him," Holmgren said.

There's that phrase again.

"We tease him a little bit about the sophomore jinx, and maybe we shouldn't do that quite so much," Holmgren said. "We're trying to motivate him, and he's doing very well. If he just keeps going and keeps working, I think he's going to have a great year."

The guy they call Booger is rewriting the book on Rashad Moore. The sixth-round pick with long-gone motivational problems is overcoming his reputation.

With defensive lineman Marcus Tubbs, the 2004 first-round pick, still holding out in Texas and spending time with his critically ill mother, Moore is making the plays and making his pitch to become a starter.

He is running down running backs on screen passes. He is stuffing the run. And now the Seahawks, who thought they had a need for an immovable force in the middle of the line, might already have the answer.

"I've always said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Holmgren said. "But he did some things as a collegiate athlete that kind of worried a lot of people. Not that he's a bad guy. He's a good guy, but it could have been effort. It could have been taking plays off in somebody's mind. Then the word spreads. And I think that's how it happened with him.

"I'm just glad we have him. And I'm glad our scouts and (vice president of football operations) Ted Thompson said, 'This guy's a good player and let's try to reach him.' "

A year later, Moore's past doesn't matter anymore. The sixth-rounder is playing like a first-rounder.

"He had the talent level to get drafted higher," said Bob Ferguson, the Seahawks' general manager."He's big and strong. He can run. He's got a great heart for the game, and he's got a little stick to him. He's got a little attitude, and I think that's what's carried him on here."

Sophomore jinx? Whisper the words to Moore in the meeting rooms. Scream them at him on the practice field. Use the specter of it to motivate him.

Whatever the motives are, the threat is working.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com