"There was a moment I’ll never forget," Hasselbeck said. "We were struggling against Arizona and Coach Holmgren is trying to give the talk to the team at halftime, and Lofa basically was like, ‘Hey, I got this.’ He didn’t even know not to cut off the head coach, but he just started talking to the team.

"You have to realize that Mike - for years before Lofa showed up - had said ‘Defense, I’m looking for someone to step up and take charge.’ He probably was going to give the same talk. He didn’t even get the words out of his mouth, and Lofa’s like, ‘Listen, this is the deal and this is what I’m going to do, and you’re going to follow.’ And everybody’s like, ‘Right on dude. Where did this come from? Doesn’t he know he’s a rookie?’ He had this demeanor of I’ve been in this locker room before and been in big games before and this is how you deal with it."