Seahawks play only for pride on the biggest star in the NFL

DALLAS — The stakes have been lowered for Seattle.

The Seahawks are 2-9, the playoffs a possibility in only a strictly mathematical sense and today they are like the race car that's a lap down, playing in Dallas where the Cowboys are very much part of the pack in the playoff chase.

The Cowboys are 7-4, starting quarterback Tony Romo is entering his third game back from a broken finger and Dallas' pair of playmaking wideouts Roy Williams and Terrell Owens present another sizable challenge for Seattle's pint-size cornerbacks.

But there's another test that Seattle will face today, one that's more a matter of motivation. The Cowboys still have the playoffs to play for while the Seahawks are left talking about pride, earning Pro Bowl votes and heeding a coach's hope that his team will use these final five games to vault toward a future that will not include him.

"It might seem like a little thing, but to me it's really important that they'll still listen," coach Mike Holmgren said. "Given the circumstances of the team and me, they'll still listen and go hard right until the end."

That's something Holmgren saw in the final three games of 2002 when a winning streak turned out to be the light at the end of his darkest season in town.

It was his third season with the team, the Seahawks had just moved into their brand-new stadium and the team responded with a belly flop. The Seahawks finished 7-9, missing the playoffs for a third consecutive season, and Holmgren's tenure with the team was at a crossroad.

He pointed to the three-game winning streak to end the year as proof that the locker room hadn't given up on him, so neither should the franchise. It wasn't enough to save all of Holmgren's job — he lost his general manager's responsibilities — but those three games became the start of the franchise's emergence as a perennial playoff contender.

"It helped us in the subsequent years," Holmgren said, "and it also gave us at that time a very good measurement on a lot of the players."

When a season goes south, it becomes a litmus test for the locker room. Some players dial it down and opt for self-preservation. Others don't let losses affect their RPMs.

"This league is not a rah-rah league," safety Brian Russell said. "This league is about earning your respect and earning another opportunity. If you're not playing well, if you're not trying hard, you're not going to get another opportunity."

It's one reason quarterback Matt Hasselbeck worked so hard to come back from a nerve condition that threatened his season.

"We've all been on teams where guys could play, but don't," Hasselbeck said earlier this month, on the day of his first full practice after returning from the injury. "That's the quickest way to lose respect.

"The quickest way to earn respect is to give it all you've got."

Hasselbeck has been back for two games now and these final five games will be a test of the Seahawks' culture. They will measure whether the character that has been talked about so much since Seattle's Super Bowl season is a buzzword or if it is the bedrock of this organization.

The Seahawks have played better these past few weeks, considering their first six losses came by an average of 17.3 points. The Seahawks lost their past three games by a combined total of 11 points.

Those nail-biters look just as bad in the standings as the earlier blowouts. The question is whether Seattle starts building on the improvement it has shown in being more competitive or whether this season that began with hopes of a happy-go-playoffs finale for Holmgren stays mired in this death spiral.

"With our record, honestly, it's hard to talk about our team on the verge of a breakthrough," Holmgren said. "But what I want to see, and I think what the organization would like to see, the fans would like to see, is obviously winning a couple games here, but also improvement.

"Hopefully, it can be a springboard into next year."

Danny O'Neil: 206-464-2364 or doneil@seattletimes.com