CHENEY, Wash. -- After four years of building, Mike Holmgren's Seattle Seahawks' offense finally was purring like his best perfectly tuned Harley. Quarterback Trent Dilfer riddled the Indianapolis Colts' defense with nine of 11 completions for 94 yards and 10 points in two possessions. Halfback Shaun Alexander busted eight runs for 41 yards.

"That was the best quarter and a half of offense in a preseason game that I've been involved with since I've been in coaching," Holmgren said. "Everything kinda worked."

A high-low hit by two Colts defenders on Dilfer blew out Seahawks optimism like a blown tire. Dilfer is out four-to-eight weeks -- lean more to six -- with a sprained medial collateral right knee ligament. Matt Hasselbeck resumes control again, his confidence restored after a tough first season as the Seahawks' starter and Holmgren's decision to give the job to Dilfer. Whether he has a strong enough support system on offense is another story

Left tackle Walter Jones is a holdout. Right tackle Chris McIntosh faces an uncertain future because a hot nerve problem in his neck, and the guy given the best hope of taking over for him, Floyd "Pork Chop" Womack, can't learn the position because he's filling in on the left side. However, Holmgren's biggest challenge is resurrecting Hasselbeck for the start of the season. That's a challenge. You can see it in the pained face of Hasselbeck. Physically, he's recovered from a nasty groin injury and sore clavicle that ravaged the left side of his body. Mentally, he's still strong, too.

"No one is going to accuse me of having a big ego right now," Hasselbeck said.

His first day back as the starter was tough. Holmgren verbally stayed on Hasselbeck, ordering him to run the offense the way it's scripted. Follow the read progressions. Don't improvise. As he reminds his quarterbacks so often, Holmgren doesn't want his quarterbacks drawing up plays in the dirt.

While it's great to be back in the saddle, Hasselbeck doesn't feel as though he's riding his horse. "I'm not going to change who I am, and I haven't changed that," Hasselbeck said. "There is definitely a void for leadership on offense. Somebody needs to step up and it needs to be me."

What's tough for Hasselbeck is trying to be a leader when he struggled to feel comfortable again in Holmgren's offense. Holmgren's standards are high. He wants Brett Favre-Steve Young efficiency. Though Hasselbeck started in 12 games last season, he struggled and didn't earn the complete confidence of his coach.

"The way that they asked me to do it last year, I played a style of football that wasn't necessarily me," Hasselbeck said. "I guess I thought they would have taken care of me or rewarded me for it, but that's pretty selfish of me. After I kinda cooled off a little bit and thought about it, if I was Mike Holmgren I might have done the same thing. He was in a win-win situation getting Trent back and having me."

Watching Dilfer take over for the final two games and almost get the Seahawks into the playoffs made things tougher for Hasselbeck. His style is to improvise and to try to make plays. Holmgren hates that, but he does allow flexibility in his rigid offense if impromptu decisions work. Dilfer made them work. Hasselbeck didn't -- or couldn't. "Maybe I spent a little too much time in Green Bay with Brett because I like to improvise a bit," Hasselbeck said. "Coach Holmgren doesn't want that right now. He wants me to go through progressions exactly how it's drawn in the book and not to get creative. I'm just trying to make plays and do what's natural for me. I think he would be okay with that if I was executing on the other stuff, but I haven't been anywhere near the player I should be as far as my base execution. I was executing better three years ago than I am right now."

	“	The way that they asked me to do it last year, I played a style of football that wasn't necessarily me. I guess I thought they would have taken care of me or rewarded me for it, but that's pretty selfish of me. After I kinda cooled off a little bit and thought about it, if I was Mike Holmgren I might have done the same thing. ”
		— QB Matt Hasselbeck

Mechanically, Hasselbeck is struggling. Go back to last season. He suffered an early-season groin injury that extended to his abdomen. Just to play, Hasselbeck needed constant electrical stimulation to the area and even needed it during games. Trainers kept wrapping the upper part of his left leg so tightly that it pointed his toes of his feet inward.

"It affected me most in a game against Denver," Hasselbeck said. "I had a wrap that would turn my toe in all the way. I couldn't be flexible. The Denver game was a bad day for me groin. My clavicle was all beaten up. I was taking shots for that. My body was out of whack."

So was his throwing mechanics. Being less mobile, Hasselbeck allowed defenses to come at him quicker and he tried to improvise, a Holmgren no-no. He's try to scramble out of the pocket. Holmgren fumed. When he'd get out of the pocket, he couldn't set his feet. Some passes went sidearm. Many were released too early for the receiver. A few bounced to the ground before reaching the receiver.

"He would scramble to his left, see the receiver and want to get it there so quick," quarterback coach Jim Zorn said. "Once he swung the ball and it hit the dirt. Sometimes, you make off-balanced throws. We practice throwing off-balance throws, but he was really, really ugly. It was bad."

In four of his starts, Hasselbeck completed less than 50 percent of his throws. He was only 54.8 percent efficient for the season, well below West Coast offense standards. Seahawks fans started chanting Dilfer in games. The whole situation was ugly.

"We've got to get Matt ready to play and he's going to do well," Alexander said. "One thing Ricky Watters taught me was never let things slide by and never take some of the good for granted. Matt had (five) wins last year. It takes different things to get people comfortable. For me, it was overhearing coaches say, 'Shaun is going to kill this team.' "

Holmgren's main focus during Hasselbeck's first day back as the starter was trying to get him to maintain the discipline of the offense.

"He got on me quite a bit, but there was more to it," Hasselbeck said. "You can't take that stuff personally. We had a decent practice, but we were blowing a lot of assignments and we weren't as accurate as we need to be."

Losing Dilfer was huge. He had the knack for doing what the coach wanted, but earning enough respect to get away with taking some chances that Holmgren might approve if asked. Saturday's performance against the Colts showed the improvement of the offensive talent. Darrell Jackson and Koren Robinson are a fine, young receiving combo who will drive defenses crazy. Tight end Jerramy Stevens is a dangerous big target with outside speed. Alexander is one of the league's best young runners.

"But the quarterback is the key for us," Holmgren said. "The offensive line right now is not as strong as I thought it was going to be. McIntosh's problem is something that no one anticipated. We have a couple young guys playing tackle. Steve Hutchinson is a Pro Bowl left guard. Robbie Tobeck is a good captain of the ship at center. Chris Gray is solid at guard. We have question marks at kicker."

Still, Holmgren says that he likes this team. What he needs is for Seattle area fans to embrace the team better. Less than 50,000 season tickets have been sold and there are no guaranteed sellouts despite moving into a great new stadium. Losing the popular Dilfer, who inspired season-ticket sales when he re-signed, won't help sales for the next four-to-eight weeks.

All of a sudden that smooth Harley ride into the season got bumpy for the coach.

John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.