COMMENTARY : Seattle Finds the Old Spirit, Only to Have Victory Taken Away

There were times Sunday afternoon when, walking the sidelines in the Seattle Seahawks’ home opener, Chuck Knox must have felt all was right with the world.

He would have preferred that it were not quite so close, and that his team were generating more points, but after a horrendous first game the week before, Knox had to feel comfortable with what he saw on the field.

It was not just another encouraging response to a forgettable game the week before; it was a reunion of Seahawks football, as defined by Chuck Knox. Control the ball, pick up first downs, kill the clock and don’t give them anything on defense.

The run-and-shoot was shot, left to die on the cutting floor of the war room where the Seahawks make their game plans. This was a game of hunker-down-and-grunt football that Knox has employed successfully before against the Raiders.

But the game turned on a blown call by the officials in the last minute of the third quarter. Raiders wide receiver Mervyn Fernandez caught a 45-yard pass from Jay Schroeder that was not, by any view, from any replay angle, a legitimate catch. Fernandez was juggling the ball and failing to get two feet inbounds all at the same time, an incomplete pass both ways.

But a pass the officials allowed.

It was a game the Seahawks almost certainly would not have lost if not for the bad call. You win a few, you lose a few, and every once in a while they take one away from you.

That is the kind of season it’s shaping up to be for Knox, who hit a coaching milestone Sunday. This was his 100th regular-season loss in the NFL. It has taken him more than 17 years to get this far, and if something doesn’t happen soon to alter the course, Knox might be a candidate for a padded cell by Halloween.

There were a lot of people who discounted Knox’s announcement to restructure the offense for the 1990 season. They were the same ones who were skeptical about Knox using a wildly innovative tight-end scheme in the offense a few seasons back.

In each case, Knox stayed very close to the blueprints he used to get three different franchises to divisional titles in the NFL.

Somehow, the Raiders were not distracted by a week of preparation against the run-and-shoot. To a man in their locker room, the Raiders said they prepared for the short passing game and the running game they have seen so many times from Knox.

When cornered, most coaches go to what they do best, and Knox was in a corner all week.

So what you have here is a team that can look pretty bad and lose in Chicago, then look pretty darn good for most of the game and lose at home. It is a team that looked like its old self again for long parts of the game Sunday, but when it was over, it found itself with an 0-2 record and a road game coming in Denver next week.

Good things can still happen, of course. You only wonder when.