| | | | | | | |  Friday, October 11, 2002
Monday night could be settled on the ground
By Melissa Stark
Special to ABC Sports Online
Now that San Francisco and Seattle are division rivals, this is a huge game on Monday night (ABC, 9 p.m. ET). Mike Holmgren said this is going to be a decisive game for the Seahawks. They are 1-3, and this game could be a big indicator of how the rest of their season will go.
It's always fun for Holmgren to face the 49ers. He grew up in San Francisco, and is a local hero there. He was the quarterback at Lincoln High before going to USC.
|  | | Steve Mariucci is 1-2 against his former boss. |
He also has a great relationship with 49ers coach Steve Mariucci. Some of the players are having fun, calling it a father-son thing, but Holmgren laughs that he's not old enough to be Steve's dad. They worked together for four years in Green Bay from 1992-95 when Holmgren was the head coach and Maruicci was his quarterbacks' coach. Mariucci has a picture hanging in his office of Holmgren yelling at him.
This will be their fourth time they'll meet on opposite sides. Holmgren won the first two meetings when he was in Green Bay, winning the NFC championship game 23-10 in 1997, Mariucci's first year in San Francisco. In 1998, Green Bay won the regular season meeting 36-22, but Mariucci got revenge with a 30-27 win in the wild-card playoffs.
Coming into Monday, the 49ers (3-1) are at an interesting point in the season. Beating the Rams for the first time in seven tries last week was a huge relief to them. That was the main motivation behind their decision to draft more speed on defense. That's been what everything has centered on the past few years, getting over that hump of beating St. Louis.
Getting past that, the players laughed when I asked how they'll maintain the edge. They say it's easy when your next game is on Monday night.
Jeff Garcia is starting to get on a roll now. He admits that he wasn't having fun at the start of the season and lacked intensity. He didn't have that fire, and Mariucci said his performance against the Rams was his best of the season (18-for-26, 214 yards, 1 TD).
One of the biggest surprises for the 49ers has been the one-two punch in the running game with Garrison Hearst (258 yards, 5.3 ypc) and Kevan Barlow (224, 5.6 ypc). That's what scares the Seahawks the most. They have struggled against the run this season (31st) in the NFL) and the fifth-worst defense in the league overall.
John Randle should make his 2002 debut this week, and that should be a big boost for the defense. He's a lot of fun, and he will be going up against rookie left guard Eric Heitmann, a seventh-round draft pick out of Stanford. Heitmann is a piano player, and that will be a lot of fodder for Randle, who is notorious for his mind games on the line.
Randle's replacement, Rocky Bernard, has done well. He was the Rookie Defensive Player of the Month with four sacks, and he credits Randle for helping him with his early success.
But stopping the run is going to be the key for Seattle. The Seahawks also know they must put pressure on Garcia.
They are hoping to have Shawn Springs back to match up with Terrell Owens. T.O. is always fun to watch, but there'll be pressure on him if J.J. Stokes can't play on Monday. It looks like he will be a game-time decision because of his knee, and if he doesn't start, Tai Streets will take his spot, and the 49ers will expect more from him and Cedrick Wilson.
On the flip side, Shaun Alexander is the man. He lights it up in primetime games (5 TDs his last time out, 8 TDs in his last three primetime games). Everyone talks about him and Deion Sanders -- being Primetime. Nobody can really explain it; his best explanation is that he just rises to the occasion, and that everyone seems to gel when they have the national audience. But even he can't explain it.
|  | | Trent Dilfer is completing 58 percent of his passes with 2 TDs and 1 INTs. |
The 49ers' goal is to stop Alexander and then give different looks to Trent Dilfer. Dilfer doesn't take a lot of gambles or risks, so he makes very few mistakes.
Dilfer likes being in Seattle. He finally feels appreciated and that is the biggest thing. He's been booed out of Tampa Bay and Baltimore got rid of him after he won the Super Bowl two years ago. After last season, Holmgren spent a month debating who his quarterback was going to be, Matt Hasselbeck or Dilfer. The fans were literally chanting Dilfer's name.
He looks back at what happened in Tampa and Baltimore, and says that's fine that people criticize him, but he wants them to give him the credit that is due. That wasn't the case in the past.
Now it is, and the fans love him. It remains to be seen if they are still cheering for him after Monday night's game.
Melissa Stark is Monday Night Football's sideline reporter and a regular contributor to ABC Sports Online.
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