On thursday night football the Seahawks traveled to the new Portland River Hogs home for a preseason week 3 game. The once Buffalo Bills, decided last season to sell the team and move em to Portland for hopefully more favorable weather. The game started off with both teams having to punt. On the next drive, the River Hogs, had a nice drive down the field, however the Seattle defense held em to a FG. Then the Seahawks got the ball and stalled out once again and had to punt. The River Hogs then had yet another strong drive down the field , marching right along with ease. They got down to the 2 yardline, and looked to be about to score on a 1st and goal. They ran HB Moreno up the middle for a run, and young CB Eric Pinkins sniffed out the play perfectly from the saftey position and laid the wood on Moreno causing a crutial fumble to change the momentum of each team drastically. "At that point in the game, the hit Eric laid on Moreno really gave our team a huge boost we needed. We were not doing well on offense, and our defense was giving up alot of yards to their offense. I really felt that hit and fumble is what turned it around for us tonight" said coach Tee .
The Seahawks started off on the 2 yardline after the fumble. On their second play QB Tolzien hit WR Kevin Norwood on a comeback route and he spun right around the CB going for the tackle and ran it 68 yards before begin caught from behind. Things were looking up for the Seahawks. They finished the drive on a 3 yard run by HB Christine Michael to go up 7 -3 with 3 minutes left before the half . On the following drive the River Hogs got Inted by Earl Thomas setting up the Seahawks with the ball and 1 minute left in the half. On a 3rd and 17 play , Tolzien finds WR Robert You on out route and he gets a cructial block by Kevin Norwood to free up You for a 43 yard Td .Putting them up 14-3 at half .
The second half the River Hogs came out and had to punt, the Seahawks eneded up doing likewise. Then the River Hogs set up a nice drive to go down field and score a TD on a pass to WR Robert Woods to bring them within 4 points as the 3rd quarter ends. The Seahawks trying to play it too safe , ran the ball and had to punt, but their defense held up and forced the Hogs to punt it right back. Then the back up QB made a bad mistake with 3 minutes left in the game on a 3rd down play and got Inted by MLB Preston Brown on the 35 yardline. The Hogs gained momentum back here and drive down and score on a 3rd down play from the 3 yardline on a pass to TE Chris Gragg to put the Hogs up 17-14 with 1:10 left in the game.
The Seahawks had all 3 timeouts , and started their last drive from the 18 yardline, a large order for a back up QB to fill. However in week 1 of preseason QB Tolzien lead the Hawks on a last minute drive to score a game winning TD over the Patriots, but could he pull it off again. After a few pass plays , the Hawks find themselves on the 25 Tolzien threads the needle and completes a pass to TE McCoy on the 3 yardline with two defenders all over him. They had to use their second timeout here. With 30 seconds left , they run a counter run play to the left with HB Robert Turbin , who finds his way to the endzone for the TD to put them up 21-17 . After the kickoff, the Hogs start moving the ball quickly down field to about their 45 yardline, then on a 2nd down play CB Asanti Samuel comes up huge with a game sealing INT . " This was a great game preseason or not. We take all games seriously and see them as gaining experience for our players . Its really good to see them not let the swing in momentum at the end of two games thus far in preseason get them down, instead both times they rose to the occasion which is what we want to see more of. Last season the team lost 5 games by less than 6 points, meaning they had a chance and didnt step up, so this is encouraging right now. I think both team played well , and it was a great battle to the end. The biggest thing to me was the fumble caused by Eric , that really turned things around in this game in a big way, before that we were being dominated on both sides of the ball. I am glad to see our guys stepping up , and great to see Tolzien , a back up , drive our team twice on last minute drives to win games, thats the type of leadership our team needs. " says coach Tee. Next week the Hawks take on the Dolphins for the week 4 preseason game, they hope to finish this preseason off well and hopefully give their players a boost of confidence before the next season starts.
