The Seahawks' defense has found itself again

Something inexplicable happened after Opening Day. The Seahawks' defense lost its identity. It lost its fire. It lost three games in a row.

Through training camp, it looked as if it had found the magic formula. The defense played faster than the opposition's offense. It hit harder. It dominated.

Then somewhere after the opening shutout of St. Louis, the magic was lost. Each week got a little worse, until last Sunday in Indianapolis, when it was fricasseed by Peyton Manning and the Colts.

Those Seahawks, who surrendered four touchdown marches of 78 yards or more in the first half against the Colts, looked nothing like the Hawks of July and August, nothing like the Hawks of Opening Day.

"Nobody thought we were going to be 1-3 coming into this game," said Seahawks' defensive end Darryl Tapp, after Sunday's shutout of Jacksonville.

The game plan for a defense with this much talent should be simple. It should be as consistent as a drumbeat. The same tempo and same intensity. The same deep malice week-to-week.

The Seahawks have to play defense like a shout. All focused and ferocious. Players have to stay in their gaps and win their individual battles. No gimmicks. No frills. No points.

The Seahawks won this Sunday resuscitator, 41-0 by being simple.

Against the Colts, that defense played as if it were huddling for safety, waiting for the hurricane to pass. Against the Jaguars, that defense was the hurricane.

"It just boiled down to this," said defensive end Cory Redding. "There's not going to be no magic call. There's not going to be no special person that we're going to go out there and go get. It's all about what we have in the locker room. And us going back to fundamentals and playing hard and having fun. Period."

All day Sunday, Jacksonville quarterback David Garrard was assaulted. In the first quarter, Lofa Tatupu pressured him into an incompletion on fourth-and-goal from the 1. Aaron Curry hurried him on one pass and hit him hard on the next down.

Tapp treated him like a punching bag on a pass that Kelly Jennings almost intercepted. Then Tapp ran over Garrard for a third-quarter sack.

"Today was the simplest football we've ever played," Redding said. "That's what we did. We slowed everything down. Nobody think. Just play hard. And it was awesome. We lined up. We strapped it on. And we had fun."

This was a defensive performance every bit as good against the Jags as last week's was bad against Indy. It was a reminder, to the fans, to the coaches and especially to the individual players, just how good this defense can be.

The Seahawks had five sacks on Garrard and hit him 13 times. In the final 15:10 of the first half, when the game was decided, Jacksonville had five consecutive threes and out.

The Jags had a mere 10 first downs. They averaged only 2.5 yards per rush and lost two fumbles. Garrard, who threw for more than 300 yards a week earlier against Tennessee, threw for 188 in this loss.

"We got back to our training camp mentality," said Tapp, who had four quarterback hits and a sack. "We had it all week. And I'm pretty sure we're going to have it now for the full season."

The defense was urgent and together.

"Our game plans are always simple," Tapp said, "but it comes back to guys were just not doing their jobs. You get in a situation where you're down and you start getting a little bit nosy in this gap and you start doing something you shouldn't be doing on that particular play. Guys were trying to force the issue instead of just playing ball."

Defensive tackle Brandon Mebane, who is becoming a shooting star, said the defense recommitted itself at a team meeting after the Colts' loss.

"We were a little frustrated," he said. "We had to change our attitude. Things aren't always going to go your way all the time. But this is part of life, how you respond to adversity.

"We had to turn around our focus. Get back to all the things we talked about when we first got together last March. We looked at the film of the Indy game and we knew that wasn't us."

The defense found itself in a soul-searching week of practice. The results appeared on Sunday.

"This is us, no doubt," Mebane said. "This is who we are."

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