Marcus Trufant on “Cloud 9” after Seahawks’ win
Oct 18, 2010, 5:30 PM | Updated: Apr 4, 2011, 7:54 pm
By Michael Simeona
MyNorthwest.com intern
The Seahawks can finally forget about the road monkey that has been weighing them down for several years.
Sunday’s 23-20 victory over the Chicago Bears was monumental considering the Seahawks haven’t won a non-divisional road game in three years. Cornerback Marcus Trufant joined Monday’s Kevin Calabro show to rehash the thrilling win over the Monsters of the Midway, and how the team reacted following the rare road victory.
“Very excited, the team is kind of floating on cloud nine” said Trufant. “It’s a good feeling I think we need to get more often.”
Heading into Week 6 the Seahawks had the worst pass defense in the NFC, as opposing teams averaged 340 passing yards per game against the Seattle secondary. While the Seahawks gave up 246 yards through the air against Chicago, they held star running back Matt Forte to only 11 yards on eight carries as the Bears’ running game was invisible on Sunday.
That was part of the game plan, said Trufant, as they forced the opposition to become one-dimensional on offense.
“It always starts with the run,” he said. “The guys up front have been playing great all year. To make a team pretty much one-dimensional is what you try to do. If you can take the run away and force teams to pass, even if they don’t want to do it, it’s going to be a long day for them.”
As rare as the road win may seem, not allowing the Bears to convert any of their 12 third down opportunities was just as surprising. Trufant said their philosophy was to force quarterback Jay Cutler to feel uncomfortable by applying pressure from the edge, as the secondary accounted for 3.5 of their six sacks.
“With the pressure you try and throw their timing off with the jams and stuff like that,” he said. “You just try to get to him and make him uncomfortable. Just not let him sit back there and go through his reads and pass the ball.”
While the victory was sweet in more ways than one, the eight-year veteran from WSU knows they must put the game behind them, as they prepare to face their NFC West rivals, the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at Qwest Field.
“I’ve been playing for a little bit and I know if you stay too focused on last week’s win it can sometimes come back to bite you the next week,” Trufant said.
