Seahawks' win overshadowed by Ruskell rumor

RENTON — It didn't take much for Sunday's accomplishment to be overshadowed by uncertainty regarding the Seahawks' future.

A two-paragraph Internet report from a Chicago-based magazine generated a local tizzy Monday, which drowned out the discussion of Seattle's first road win in nearly three months.

ProFootballWeekly.com cited a source saying Tim Ruskell had been told he wouldn't be re-signed after the season as team president and general manager. The report did not specify who supposedly delivered that message to Ruskell, when it was delivered or even provide a name of the reporter.

Ruskell showed up for work as usual Monday, yet the two paragraphs of that report generated as much local chatter as the four quarters of progress Seattle made Sunday in St. Louis.

"I haven't seen those reports, I'm sorry," coach Jim Mora said when asked about the rumor of Ruskell's front-office demise.

Ruskell was not available for comment, which has been the team's standard practice since the regular season began.

So, the staff and the players haven't been briefed on anything?

"No," Mora said. "We're pretty involved with St. Louis Rams cleanup and San Francisco prep. We live in a cave. We're cavemen."

Everyone else is going to be subjected to another five weeks of speculation, conjecture and rumors over what exactly is going to happen in the Seahawks' front office.

It's a valid question. Ruskell's five-year contract is coming to an end, there has been no move by the team to extend that deal, and there are questions about the downward trajectory the franchise has taken over his term. Ten of the team's 40 regular-season victories in his presidency have been over St. Louis.

A decision will be made about the future. But there's no indication it has been made yet — let alone communicated to Ruskell — as the report indicated. Not only that, but only a few people in the Seahawks' franchise would be privy to that discussion. It seems unlikely that owner Paul Allen would be dropping tips to ProFootballWeekly.com while undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Lost amid discussion of the report is the fact that Sunday's victory in St. Louis was one of the only times this season in which the Seahawks lived up to Mora's ideal blueprint of a successful rushing offense paired with an aggressive, turnover-forcing defense.

Sure, Seattle's 27-17 victory came against St. Louis, which is at the bottom of the NFC West for a third consecutive season.

But Seattle hurled its linebackers, safeties and other assorted heavy objects at quarterback Kyle Boller to great results. Seattle finished with four sacks, its most in any game since the Week 5 shutout of Jacksonville.

Of course, it helped that Seattle felt comfortable leaving its cornerbacks in one-on-one coverage against St. Louis receivers like Ruvell Martin and Danny Amendola. But the game also showed that the defense is growing into the schemes installed in the offseason. And now that the players are familiar with what is expected, the complexity is getting dialed up.

"We could be creative and exotic as heck on defense with blitz packages and probably make some really good plays," Mora said, "but we'd also give up some really big plays, and I don't know that we'd be building it the way we want to build it, which is with a strong foundation.

"[Sunday] we felt like that was something that we could have some success with and we did, pressuring."

And after the Seahawks' first road win of the season, the team returned to the pressure-cooker after the report regarding Ruskell. As the city debates the future of the franchise's front office, it's worth remembering that what happens on the field still matters, too.

Danny O'Neil: 206-464-2364