Huard: Cross, Seahawks rookies ‘ate a huge slice of humble pie’ vs Bears

The Seahawks’ preseason opener in Pittsburgh may have been a loss, but there were still plenty of positives to take away from the game. That wasn’t the case Thursday night when Seattle hosted the Chicago Bears.

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The Seahawks fell 27-11 and made critical mistakes in every phase of the game. On special teams, the Seahawks allowed big returns while fumbling a punt return that resulted in a Chicago touchdown. On offense, receivers dropped a number of passes and the offensive line was called for a lot of penalties. And defensively, Seattle again struggled to make tackles in the open field.

While preseason action should often be taken with a grain of salt, former NFL quarterback Brock Huard told Seattle Sports 710 AM’s Mike Salk Show that he was very underwhelmed with the Seahawks’ performance against a Bears team that may be among the worst in the league.

“Chicago just went in there and thumped them in all three phases while Seattle played more starters than they did,” Huard said Friday morning.

That the Seahawks played so many expected contributors and still looked that poor was alarming, Huard said.

“You have one home preseason game, you’re in primetime, you’re playing your O-line with a lot of your starters into the fourth quarter. You’re playing half of your starters defensively into the second quarter. You’re playing against twos and threes on the other side and you can’t compete last night,” he said.

Salk thought the offensive line, penalties aside, looked good on Thursday while moving defenders around the line of scrimmage. Huard said the penalties can’t be brushed aside since they “killed four drives.” Additionally, Seattle’s starters were playing against backups for most of the night.

“They were (playing against) twos and threes and you’re starters … When you’re playing twos and threes, you should do that,” he said.

Last week, the Seahawks’ rookie draft class was the talk of the game after some good performances. Huard wasn’t impressed with the rookies aside from right tackle Abraham Lucas.

“They came back and ate a huge slice of humble pie last night, almost across the board with the rookie class other than Abe Lucas,” he said. “I thought the rest of them had their ‘welcome to the NFL’ moment like, ‘Man, I hope this doesn’t cost me a spot on the active roster,’ and it may. That’s how thin the margin is … You don’t get those opportunities back.”

Lucas was “once again barreling over people,” Huard said, and he liked that the Seahawks played him and first-round left tackle Charles Cross into the fourth quarter.

And speaking of Cross, he certainly has a game to forget as he was called for four false starts and one hold. Huard thinks that could be a good thing in the long run.

“I kinda like the adversity of Charles Cross jumping offsides four times and another penalty because now we get to see how he responds to it,” he said. “Because that’s what happens when you’re a rookie. You go through the fire and we get to see if you can come out the other side. We’ve seen a lot of rookies not come out the other side. So I don’t mind a bit of adversity.”

Listen to Huard’s full talk with Salk at this link or in the player below.

Good, Bad and Ugly: Seahawks turn in poor performance vs Bears

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