Notes from SI.com's Seahawks Preview

Start off with the link. It's unfortunately that Peter King isn't stopping at Seahawks camp, just because I enjoy his writing. I'm not familiar with Jim Trotter (looks like he was signed away from a San Diego newspaper last year), but the article seemed well written, so good start, Jim.

Here's a stat about Seattle's 2007 running game that I hadn't heard before, but was not at all surprised about:

Percentage-wise in 2007, the unit ranked first in negative rushes (15.8) and last in third-and-1 conversions (45.8). The league average in the latter was 71.6.

I'd like to know what the breakdown was for each running back, which of course means I'd like to know how poorly Shaun Alexander ran. He always seemed to get caught behind the line of scrimmage. Yes, the offensive line shares the blame, and overall there was a negative synergy between Alexander and the line that produced results worse than the sum of the parts. The league average on third-and-1 was 71.6%. The Seahawks were 25 percentage points worse. I guess that's what T.J. Duckett was signed for. We'll check back in on those numbers at mid-season and see how we've progressed.

Although he's not participating in team workouts, Branch has looked surprisingly strong during rehab sessions. On Monday morning he ran, cut and moved laterally without signs of discomfort during agility drills.

I wasn't too worried about missing Deion Branch for a significant part of the season until one of the newspaper blogs pointed out that Hasselbeck has a special (game) relationship with Branch, similar to what he had with Darryl Jackson, that he doesn't have with Burleson or any of the young receivers. And then I got hooked watching nfl.com videos yesterday and came across a couple of beautiful connections between Hasselbeck and Branch:

• Week 3 against the Bengals (1:13 in)
• Week 4 against the 49ers (1:11)
• Week 14 against the Cardinals (0:26 and 1:10)

Damn. Actually, it's crucial that we get Deion Branch back as a top target. I know he won't be 100% at the start of the season - players can play again a year after an ACL tear, but it always takes two before they're completely back. With luck, Branch can be close to 100% by the end of the season, when it counts.