Seahawks confident that defensive mistakes from opener are fixable

RENTON – If there was any concern among Seattle’s defensive players about all the mistakes they committed against St. Louis, you wouldn’t know it based on their public comments since then. They’ve all sounded something like this:

“It’s all fixable stuff,” free safety Earl Thomas said Thursday, “and I guarantee you we’re gonna fix it.”

Seattle’s defense was almost unrecognizable against St. Louis, and not only because it was someone other than Kam Chancellor who was patrolling the back end but more so because of so many uncharacteristic mistakes. Missed tackles, big plays, receivers running wide open downfield – the types of miscues you that have rarely been by what has for the last few seasons been the NFL’s best defense.

Cornerback Richard Sherman was asked how confident he is those the issues can be corrected.

“Oh, 100 percent,” he said. “That’s what we were excited about, because they were all fixable issues. There wasn’t any guy getting straight up beat. Dion (Bailey) slipped on one play, and that’s fixable. He should have been in press anyway. You’ve got guys that missed tackles that they make nine times out of 10. We’re just going to work on tackling, work on tracking, working on the things we always work on.”

The touchdown pass that Bailey allowed in the fourth quarter was one of eight St. Louis passing plays that gained 20 yards or more, which is one fourth of the total that Seattle’s defense allowed all of last season. While that might be alarming to some – especially considering how the challenge won’t get any easier on Sunday against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers – coach Pete Carroll didn’t seem the least bit concerned.

“Everything that happened in the game really got down to fundamentals and getting out of your drops and coverage, and the rushes, picking up formations and things,” he said. “Everything that happened was really fundamental stuff that you can fix, and every guy in the room will tell you ‘I could have done this, I could have done that,’ and the coaches could’ve done better coaching it, I could’ve been better making guys aware, all of that stuff. So there’s always room to improve, it’s not something we can’t handle.”

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