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Seahawks disappoint with sloppy preseason play

After back-to-back completions to Jerramy Stevens midway through the first quarter of Monday night`s preseason game at Qwest Field, Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck tried squeezing the ball to his big tight end for a third straight time. At which point Dallas linebacker Demarcus Ware finally read the rollout and stepped in front of Stevens for an easy interception. Moral of the story? Apparently, you can have too much of a good thing, though that`s not a policy Seahawks fans have been exposed to often over the years.

However, too much meaningless preseason football is a given, thanks to the NFL`s insistence on four practice games each year at full ticket price for fans. The only thing worse is the league`s policy on blacking out nationally televised preseason games, which is why Seattle viewers were watching Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune on ABC instead of Al Michaels and John Madden on Monday night.Unless you were one of the 40,000 or so fans who showed up at Qwest Field, you missed an 18-10 Seahawks setback that included four Seattle fumbles (one lost), 12 Seattle penalties (one that cost a touchdown) and a handful of dropped passes (several that could cost borderline players their jobs).

Still, the Seahawks could have won if not for a multitude of mistakes, including a blocking-in-the-back penalty on defensive back Omare Lowe that nullified a 54-yard fumble return for a score by Jordan Babineaux late in the fourth period. But, hey, not all was lost in a game that meant next to nothing in the big picture. The Seahawks defensive line continues to look vastly improved in the interior with free-agent addition Chuck Darby and second-year man Marcus Tubbs. That duo combined on one sack of Drew Bledsoe and made life difficult for a Cowboys` running game that gashed Seattle for 198 yards rushing last season.