All that matters is forgetting this game

ATLANTA — Forget this game.

Forget the fumbles by Seahawks quarterbacks Matt Hasselbeck and Seneca Wallace.

Forget the 21 fourth-quarter points the Atlanta Falcons scored so quickly you would have thought they were the New England Patriots.

Forget the 44 points this supposedly staunch defense allowed to an offense that had scored more than 16 points only once in its previous six games.

Forget the interception Wallace threw that the Falcons quickly turned into points.

Forget the open-field tackle on tight end Alge Crumpler that linebacker Lofa Tatupu missed, resulting in a 55-yard touchdown that tied the score.

Forget Sunday's sloppy exercise because it was irrelevant. Or as former Sonics all-star Gary Payton used to say, succinctly summarizing such situations, "It don't mean nuthin'."

Forget the ice bag that was wrapped around Hasselbeck's sore right wrist. He won't miss a practice this week. And forget the Tom Brady-like passer rating of 132.9 from the Falcons' journeyman quarterback, Chris Redman.

Forget the deep, red-faced scowl coach Mike Holmgren wore after the game. And, most of all, forget the locker-room rhetoric from a team that mailed in this 44-41 loss to the supposedly hapless four-win Falcons.

The reviews are in.

"Appalling," defensive end Patrick Kerney called the Hawks' performance.

"Frustrating," said safety Brian Russell.

"Embarrassing," said safety Deon Grant.

It was all of the above and still it meant nothing.

The Seahawks played their base defense, never doing anything creative to confuse Redman. They rested Hasselbeck in the second half and probably should have kept him out of the game entirely.

Shaun Alexander finally got his 100th career rushing touchdown. Bobby Engram made a Ken Griffey-esque over-the-shoulder catch for a 30-yard touchdown in the first half. Josh Brown reminded us he is clearly out of his slump, nailing 54- and 51-yard field goals. And Nate Burleson caught two late-game touchdown passes from Wallace.

Forget all of that, too.

The Seahawks ho-hummed this game, but they left it, and all of its slop, where it belonged, inside the Georgia Dome.

"This was a hard game to play," Holmgren said.

And, to prove his point, the Seahawks didn't play hard.

"I can only speak for myself and every game means something to me," Grant said. "I don't care if I'm playing against my little sister. And I don't like getting embarrassed. They had guys whose season is really over with and we've got guys who are going in the playoffs and we give up 44 points?

"This isn't a hard game to play. Not if you're in the National Football League. If you don't want to get embarrassed, it's not a difficult situation to be in. No, they didn't do anything that surprised us. Well, yeah they did. They scored 44 points."

But think of this loss this way — every game in the NFL is important except this one. Every game has meaning — but not this one.

Pro Bowl left tackle Walter Jones didn't play, which meant Hasselbeck got hit continuously, like a padded piñata. Wideout Deion Branch rested his sore calf. And the defense looked so vanilla, you would have thought this was August, not December.

Forget all of the blown coverages and missed tackles. Forget the penalties. Forget the extra split-seconds Redman had in the pocket because of the Hawks' lethargic pass rush. Consider this one a defensive anomaly.

Forget this game, because the Seahawks had forgotten it by the time their plane crossed the Mississippi.

The playoffs begin Saturday. Only the Redskins matter now.

"You have to forget this," Grant said. "The only thing you should remember about the regular season is the mistakes you made, so you can go about correcting them."

Do like the players did. Get mad about this loss. And then get over it.

"I don't think there's any Sunday that should be hard to get up for," Russell said. "You get 16 of these a year and any opponent in the NFL has a chance to be very dangerous. We just didn't play very good football. I'm frustrated by the way we played today and by the way I played today.

"We gave up run plays, pass plays, screens. We came out and stunk up the joint today. It's disappointing, but we can't allow this to have any effect on the way we play next week, other than to motivate us to play better. I'm going to wipe the slate clean pretty quick."

Yesterday doesn't count in January.

For the Seahawks, today is the first day of the postseason. And the Atlanta Falcons have been forgotten.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists