Hawks rely on experience when pressure mounts

Yawn. Been there. Done that.

The Seahawks have been through this before. Most of them, anyway.

Five consecutive playoff appearances. Four consecutive NFC West titles. Three wild-card games, two divisional games, an NFC Championship and a Super Bowl, all since the 2003 season.

Postseason jitters? Not likely.

Not for a team with 15 starters who have played in at least four playoff games. No wonder the locker room was loose and loud this week even though practices were intense. This is familiar territory.

"It always helps anytime you have a lot of experience, especially big games like this," said defensive tackle Rocky Bernard, the longest-tenured Seahawks starting defensive player after six postseason games.

"You already know what to expect coming into the game, what type of intensity, what type of emotion there's going to be. I'll be well prepared for it."

Many of these Seahawks have seen it all in postseason. Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck's bold proclamation of "We want the ball, and we're gonna score!" at Green Bay in a wild-card game in 2004. A crushing loss to St. Louis in a 2005 wild-card game at Qwest Field, when Bobby Engram couldn't handle a short pass in the end zone that would have tied the score.

Taking victory from defeat when Dallas quarterback Tony Romo juggled the hold on a field-goal try late in last season's wild-card game. The spectacle that is the Super Bowl.

Adversity? The Seahawks feel confident that if things don't go their way early in today's game, they can recall what they have gone through and bounce back.

At the end of the 2005 season, the Seahawks were looking for their first playoff win since 1984. The Washington Redskins — today's wild-card opponent — were coming into town, and Hasselbeck felt the pressure.

"More than any other game we had that year, Super Bowl included, that was probably the game that everybody felt the most pressure," Hasselbeck recalled. "That's kind of a thing of the past now. ... Hopefully, we can continue to move forward."

Among NFC playoff quarterbacks this season, only Brett Favre of Green Bay has been in more postseason games than Hasselbeck. Favre is 11-9 with a quarterback rating of 84.0; Hasselbeck is 3-4 with an 80.7.

The Seahawks beat Washington in January 2006, and have added to their playoff résumé since. All but one defensive starter — rookie tackle Brandon Mebane — has playoff experience.

Holmgren was asked about his star players raising their level of play in the postseason.

"Well, they have to. I challenge them to," Holmgren said. "I wouldn't just talk to the Pro Bowl players. I think you have to talk to the whole team. I have expectations of certain players on the football team. And the more experienced they are, the better they are. Yeah, we will go as far as our best players take us."

Bernard recalls his second season in Seattle, 2003, when the Seahawks made the playoffs for the first time in this run.

"It was kind of a huge thing for us," Bernard said. "Now it's just we know what we have to do."

One step Hasselbeck took this week was to make sure his team was not wound too tight. He sported a mustache that drew rave — and unflattering — reviews from his teammates.

"It wasn't as popular at home as it was in the locker room," Hasselbeck said. "They enjoyed laughing at me."

Said Holmgren of Hasselbeck, one of the Seahawks' captains: "It's his football team now, and it has been for a couple of years."

Bernard had words of wisdom for his younger teammates.

"Whatever the biggest game you had in college," he said, "it's probably going to be 10 times as big."

José Miguel Romero: 206-464-2409

or jromero@seattletimes.com