Frye: Don't hit me anymore...Oh God, I pray to God you don't hit me anymore. I'll do anything you say, but I can't take anymore.

Holmgren: You got your mind right, Frye?

Frye: Yeah. I got it right. I got it right, coach. [He grips the ankles of coach]

Holmgren: Suppose you's back-slide on us?

Frye: Oh no I won't. I won't, boss.

Holmgren: Suppose you's to back-sass?

Frye: No I won't. I won't. I got my mind right.

Holmgren: You try to run again, we gonna kill ya.

Frye: I won't, I won't, boss.

Now, I'm not fluent in Bark, but I don't think Mike Holmgren was too happy with Charlie Frye's performance on Sunday. And, sure, he was setup to fail, but that all changes Mond-

Ah, damn.

Chargers Pass Defense: -15.2% (2)
Chargers Weighted Defense: -15.9% (1)

At least Jordan Kent is emerging as a solid #2-

Crap-Stink.

Chargers against #2 receivers: -72.1% (1)

Not that I think Charlie Frye is or ever will be a good quarterback, but...

34/56, 328 yards, 2TD, 6 Ints

That was Peyton Manning's line against the Chargers last season.

22/33, 209 yards, 2 TDs, 3 Ints

And that Tom Brady's in the conference championships.

Multiply that inherent difficulty by Frye's mincing panic facing unorthodox blitzes, and...

Stay down Charlie, stay down.

• Kyle Williams made his case for the continued presence of Porkchop, blowing four blocks against competition as good as Dan Bazuin and as bad as Nick Osborn. Recent free agent signee Osborn had just 7 sacks in a 46 game career at San Diego State. He's so new he's not listed on the official roster. Osborn, who saw only limited action with Chicago's second string, is 6'4", 250-260. He's Chicago's Dallas Sartz: tall, a good employee and as likely to make the roster as, well, as Kyle Williams.

  The blown block that blew up came one play after a hold by John Carlson backed Seattle to its own 5.

  It's 2^nd and 10 on the Seattle 5. Seattle breaks in 2 WR, TE, Rb. Bears are in a base 4-3. At the snap, Bazuin runs right around Williams, before even fullback David Kirtman reaches the line of scrimmage. In fact, Charlie Frye is still in his backpedal. Whatever wily decision Frye should have, could have but didn't make, this play is FUBAR. Frye does, as Warren Moon put it, the "thing he can do" and scrambles right avoiding Bazuin. In the confusion, Williams has not only permitted Bazuin near unimpeded to the ball carrier, but stupidly vacated right containment attempting to make up for his mistake. Making another mistake.

  In the scrum, Steve Vallos has lost his man, tackle Matt Toeaina. Kirtman puts a block on Toeaina, but rightly continues his route left. Right not because it positively affects the play, moving towards the left flat whilst Frye is rolling right renders Kirtman dead, but right because that was Kirtman's assignment. Toeaina grabs Frye, Frye attempts to dish the ball to T.J. Duckett and you know the rest.

• Mansfield Wrotto was the man ducking defenders on Frye's first interception of the quarter - second of the game. Wrotto has quick feet and can dominate a defender, but against a blitz he makes terrible reads, too often hustling forward to engage one man while obliviously allowing defenders to storm in around him. That was the case on this play, Wrotto quixotically charging Rod Wilson while Ricky Manning, Jr. sprinted untouched just right of Wrotto. I'm not sure Wilson was even blitzing, and Wrotto certainly should have held the line rather than volunteer a pass rush lane.
• Duckett can be picky but he does pick up blitzes well.
• One thing Logan Payne can do, to repeat a theme, is snatch the ball away from his body.
• Michael Bumpus and new long snapper Tim Lindsey missed tackles on Earl Bennett's punt return touchdown. Bumpus, a gunner, struggled to break Chicago's press and was very late to reach Bennett. Lindsey was nearly the last line of defense and was forced into a bad angle.

That's it. Both teams went vanilla and interesting play took a quarter off. Frye may not be long for this league, but his line didn't help him. We'll complete the 4th quarter and overtime tomorrow.

Slow quarter. Not as much to report as I'd like, but the inactivity lent me a chance to investigate a hunch.

• I couldn't be much less impressed with Matt Forte who looks more like a three-team retread than a young feature back. On the second play of the quarter, Forte cut into center Olin Kreutz and essentially tackled himself. You can give partial credit to Leroy Hill for forcing the cutback and partial credit to Craig Terrill for steering Kreutz, but full discredit to Forte who looked slow, stiff and upright on almost every rush.

• Seattle's first drive was mistake riddled. Walter Jones and Jeb Putzier botched blocks on the third play, sandwiched by botched blocks by Mike Wahle on the second and fourth plays.

• Some of the blame is Charlie Frye's. Frye takes an eternity to pass, and that weakness is all about his very limited read. If you are wondering how Kent was targeted seven times in the first half, and the rest of Seattle's wide receiving corps was targeted just twice, you need only look at Frye's eyes. He locks onto one receiver and waits until that man is open. Kent earned Frye's confidence on Saturday and became a de facto Steve Smith. Even when Frye checked down, he almost invariably found the underneath man on the same side of the field as Kent. Kent played mostly out of the split end formation on the offensive left. Frye targeted his backs on 7 passes, 1 to the right, 2 up the middle and 4 to the left. The pass right was a swing pass to Morris out of split backs on 3rd and 3, with Morris the designed target. Limited read sounds fixable but reading coverage is an essential skill for a quarterback. Frye, even at Akron, has always waited on his man. Until he evolves his read, and it is likely he won't, Frye will always be a magnet for sacks and encompassed by interceptions.

• Moving on from that cheery note, let's talk T.J. Duckett. Duckett, poisoned from the start by some selective quoting and since slagged for not fumbling the ball, did what everyone's been pissing and moaning for him - really, any Seahawk - to do, and did so against a top 10 team at preventing it: Duckett converted short yardage.

  Fourth play of Seattle's second drive of the second quarter, 4^th and 1, Chicago 38. Seattle breaks in the keenly disguised 1 WR, TE, Hb, I-formation. The Bears, naturally, break in a Base 4-3, with 10 men in the box. Duckett takes it up behind the right guard, finds nothing, plunges forth and splits Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs for two and the first.

• Watching that almost beautiful, almost touchdown pass from Frye to Kent on the eighth play of that same drive, I thought someday Kent makes that catch. And on that someday, Seattle should have real-deal #1 wide receiver.

• Josh Wilson had another fine quarter. He's a disruptive blitzer, where his quickness off the edge is startling and enough to force panic throws even if Wilson is easily blocked. And, not to get ahead of myself, but you might not have noticed that Wilson made three plays in pass coverage: two pass defenses and a tackle for -2 yards. Otherwise, the Bears didn't even bother to target his man.

• Good double coverage by Kelly Jennings and Deon Grant to prevent a touchdown, but how the hell did Chicago get so close in the first place? Seattle's defensive scheme was almost permissive and that moronic strategy got me thinking: Didn't Seattle employ this same quasi-prevent last season? Let's see.

  Here's my criteria, and no, I don't know the results starting this:

  Drives Started by the opponent with less than four minutes remaining in the second quarter, but not less than 30 seconds.

  Over the 16 game regular season, Seattle faced 12 such scenarios. Those drives averaged 29.6 yards and 1.67 points per drive. In 2007, Seattle was the league leader in both yards per drive (24.24) and points per drive (1.39). Assuming Seattle was attempting to bend and thereby kill the clock, the 29.6 yards might be justifiable, but the 1.67 points allowed is not. In theory, a defense with the clock on its side has the advantage, but 1.67 points per drive would drop Seattle's defense from best in the league to middle of the pack: between the Jaguars (1.65) and the Giants (1.68).

  In other words, John Marshall, cut out all the stupid, damn, ultra-conservative, quasi-prevent defenses to close out the second quarter. You're hurting your team.

Charlie Frye is a failed quarterback. Seattle moved a sixth round pick for Frye hoping to rectify a botched start to his career. Frye, always a project, never a plug and play quarterback, cut his teeth behind some miserable offensive lines. His style inflates sacks and he struggled mightily in Cleveland, suffering 66 sacks over 557 pass attempts. Adjusted for opponent and down and distance, Frye recorded Kriegian adjusted sack rates of 10.7% (2005) and 9.8% (2006). For comparison, his tackle dummies in arms Trent Dilfer and Derek Anderson suffered but 6.4% (2005) and 6.0% (2006) adjusted sack rates, respectively. After a five sack slip and slide in week one, Cleveland cut bait, shipping Frye to Seattle for a sixth round pick. Behind a revamped offensive line, Anderson's rate improved from good to excellent: 3.5%.

Anderson, inaccurate but big, mobile and with a quick release, could survive if not thrive behind a worm-eaten line. Frye became a worse quarterback by the snap. Seattle has attempted to decondition Frye's sack induced spasms by teaching him to make quicker reads, check down to his tight end and running backs and fit him with the red shirt aegis. If only the latter worked during the season. They also, theoretically, assembled a line that could give him the kind of time to remain plumb. That's out the window on Saturday, as the white rat's back and the boom returns.

The goal of the preseason is not to win, but to develop. To assess talent and execute plays against unfriendly opposition. If Mike Holmgren expects execution and an accurate display of skills on Saturday, he's not only mistaken, he may be making one of the fundamental mistakes of management: overmatching new employees and positioning them to fail.

The Bears will play their starters into the third quarter. Seattle will not reciprocate. Seneca Wallace or Frye will start, but, either way, Frye will see extensive action. Should he start, Frye may be bookended briefly by starting tackles Walter Jones and Sean Locklear. That'll be nice for Charlie. The cheery arrival before the turn of the screw, because after those ten snaps or so, Jones and Lock get to squat and the Kyle Williams/Ray Willis Happy-Birthday-of-Death B unit are scheduled to escort Mark Anderson, Adawale Ogunleye and Mike Brown about Frye's head and shoulders. Clench that mouthguard, Frye Guy, Tommie Harris is swooping in with a cape shaped like Steve Vallos. But Chicago's front six are no children and Frye no innocent, in fact, he's about to be downright violated.

So "double-u tee ef?" as my wife would say. Why put Frye in the fryer? Why take a battered quarterback and marry him to Rocky? Holmgren seems like the old school type that demands accountability in a tornado. In that sense, he doesn't expect Frye to beat the disaster, just keep his head. And if he can't, at least lick his wounds and build up from the breakdown. It's not a sure-failure strategy. Some thrive on adversity. Sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand, just probably not for Frye, who's had his share of nothing and not too many cold drinks.

Again Danny O'neil is the quickest draw in the land, and again that leaves him standing alone.

Seahawks Blog

Kelly Jennings played great coverage on a deep pass thrown to Bobby Engram during a seven-on-seven passing drill ...

This caught my eye because I think Jennings is about perfectly suited to shutdown Bobby Engram. Good cover, good reaction, great speed/quickness and enough strength. Obviously, then, it doesn't take much strength. I'll discuss this in greater detail during the podcast, but whatever Engram did last season, he's not who Seattle want to run their passing offense through.

A pass intended for Logan Payne was defended well by safety Jordan Babineaux. The ball hit Payne's hands, but it was the defense on the play that caused the incompletion. And had it been a game, Payne probably would have gotten clobbered by another safety in the middle ...

Can we call this the perfunctory Payne mention? And sorry Logan, if you can't hold onto the ball after impact, you don't have great hands. With my confidence in Payne's potential at an all-time low and Taylor MIA, I think the time to find depth at wide receiver is now.

Talkin' Hawks

PLAYS OF THE DAY
Offense: Pro Bowl tackle Walter Jones came off his block to chip Pro Bowl linebacker Julian Peterson, which allowed running back Julius Jones to get around the corner and up the sideline.

Sounds like a well executed play. Given that it's Walter Jones and all, that's not news. Actually, I included this quote to applaud Clare Farnsworth. It's nice to see a subtle line-play get recognized.

Defense: Second-year defensive tackle Brandon Mebane got the best of veteran guard Mike Wahle not once but twice on the same play. Mebane blew up a running play by beating Wahle with an explosive inside move, forcing Wahle to grab him. Wahle demonstrated his frustration by slamming his hand on the turf and bellowing an expletive.

Last season, Wahle and Mebane fought to a stalemate. This season, it sounds like Mebane is taking over. I think Wahle will improve some this season, in better overall offensive line, alongside Walter Jones, and another year removed from major shoulder surgery, but recovering, regaining form, is never going to be a match for the natural growth of a young player. Not all young players improve as they enter their prime, but most do. And promising young players who really shined often take a major step their second season. That's how I cast Mebane, young, humble, full of potential, drive and just tapping his physical potential.

QUESTION OF THE DAY
Jim Mitchell wants to know if Charlie Frye can be that third quarterback who will finally allow the Seahawks to use backup Seneca Wallace as a situational receiver/runner/retruner – to the point where he catches 3-5 passes a game?

A: In a word, no. While Frye continues to show improvement in mastering the offense, he also continues to torment the coaches with his inconsistency.

That was apparent Wednesday, when he overthrew a receiver in the end zone – in an against-air drill where there are no defenders. Then, during the scrimmage that ended the morning practice, Frye hooked up with rookie tight end John Carlson for a 17-yard completion, but also threw a pass to Logan Payne that was intercepted by Kevin Hobbs – after not going to his wide-open primary receiver for some reason.

I think we can safely say Frye is a requisite third string quarterback who must improve to be serviceable. Unlike Hasselbeck, who can produce through inferior weapons because of a great read and good accuracy, Frye will produce slightly below the level of his weapons. In Seattle, that's bad.

Offense/Defense

Split End	Slot	Left Tackle	Left Guard	Center	Right Guard	Right Tackle	Tight End	Flanker
Nate Burleson Ben Obomanu Jordan Kent	Ben Obomanu LoganPayne	Walter Jones Sean Locklear FloydWomack	Mike Wahle Rob Sims MansfieldWrotto	Chris Spencer Chris Gray Steve Vallos	Rob Sims Chris Gray RayWillis	Sean Locklear Ray Willis SteveVallos	John Carlson Jeb Putzier Will Heller	Bobby Engram Courtney Taylor DeionBranch

Fullback	Quarterback	Running Back
Leonard Weaver Owen Schmitt David Kirtman	Matt Hasselbeck Seneca Wallace Charlie Frye	Julius Jones Maurice Morris TJ Ducket JustinForsett