Quarterback Debate

The most hotly debated position, as it should be, for the Seahawks remains the backup quarterback position. Some people believe Seneca Wallace can lead us to a championship if Hasselbeck goes down, others would like to see him in a Slash role, and others do not think he can handle being a starter if called upon. I contend that none of that really matters. The Seahawks need a veteran quarterback no matter what you think about Seneca Wallace or David Greene and Gibran Hamdan, for that matter.

The Seahawks are one of the only teams in the NFL without two quarterbacks on the roster that have started at least one regular season game. The others are Denver, New England, Tennessee and San Diego. Denver (Jay Cutler), Tennessee (Vince Young) and San Diego (Philip Rivers) all have first round quarterbacks they are grooming to take over. New England is in a similar situation to Seattle after Doug Flutie chose to retire, but they will almost certainly sign Jay Fiedler. That leaves Seattle with perhaps the scariest backup quarterback situation in the NFL. Not only does Seattle not have a quarterback with a start a start on the bench, but Seneca Wallace is the only one to even play in regular season games and has attempted only 25 passes.

The point is, the Seahawks have no idea what our guys will be able to do if called upon to be our starter. The New York Jets ran into this situation after both Chad Pennington and Jay Fiedler got hurt last year. Brooks Bollinger proved to be a decent player, throwing 7 TDs and 6 INTs and completing 56.4% of his passes, for a woeful Jets team. However, the uncertainty surrounding him led Herm Edwards to bring Vinny Testaverde back from the dead. Even if Seattle believes in Seneca Wallace as a solid backup quarterback, we have no one to turn to if the starting role proves to be too much for him to handle. Matt Hasselbeck can even attest to the difficulty of being a starting quarterback for the first time. The Seahawks need a veteran with at least some experience (any would be nice).

It is very typical for a quarterback to struggle in their first stint as a starting quarterback, go to the bench and learn from their game experience, and then show huge improvement in their subsequent starting opportunity. Matt Hasselbeck is a perfect example of this, so you should still be apprehensive even if you believe Seneca Wallace could be the next Matt Hasselbeck. There are other examples of a young quarterback stepping in and producing right away (Ben Roethlisberger), but most of those quarterbacks have either been first or second round draft choices. Seneca Wallace has been learning the system for 4 years, but if he were successful he would be the exception, not the rule. If we are trying to gauge how the Seahawks feel about Seneca Wallace, take this into consideration. We drafted a quarterback last year in the third round and we pursued Brad Johnson last off-season and continue to discuss picking up a veteran quarterback this year.