Matt Hasselbeck
Matt Hasselbeck
Matthew Michael Hasselbeck is a former American football quarterback and current analyst for ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown. He was drafted in the sixth round of the 1998 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers. After a season on the practice squad and two seasons backing up Brett Favre, he was traded to the Seattle Seahawks in 2001. Hasselbeck led Seattle to six playoff appearances and a Super Bowl. He was selected to three Pro Bowls and was an All-Pro in...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFootball Player
Date of Birth25 September 1975
CityBoulder, CO
CountryUnited States of America
When I first got here, people talked about the 12th Man at Husky Stadium, and I didn't believe it. When we moved into Qwest Field, it's been different, especially the last three years. I've played in a lot of stadiums, and this is the loudest. Dome or no dome, our fans, for whatever reason, know how to get loud.
It's a league where you've got to earn your stripes. And the emphasis is on earn , believe me.
We know you guys are new, we don't care, and we're not going to get ultra-conservative. We believe in you guys and we're going to let you make plays.
There was a time when we talked about how good a team we were but I'm not sure we believed it. Now we don't talk about it so much but I know we believe it.
There's a little bit of motivation when people don't believe in you, and there are people who don't believe in our team. There are people who say they're not that good. That's a little bit of a motivating factor, but it's not something we're hung up on.
Part of me feels like we were just happy to be there back then and if we won it would just be an added bonus. I don't think that's the case on this team. This team talks about it less, but in a funny way, we believe it more. Back then we talked about it more and believed it less. I like it better this way.
I don't know how to explain it other than we feel really good about what we are doing. We believe in the program. We believe in what the coaches are asking us to do and we believe in each other.
We just had opportunities to score touchdowns, but we didn't score touchdowns. We were moving the ball fine, rhythm, time of possession, first downs, yards...we just couldn't score touchdowns.
We were really focused on the task at hand rather than, 'Oh, my gosh, we're in this big game.
We went 8-0. We were the team that never punted. You can go back and see the trophy. It's printed on there.
It was tough. There was a lot of stuff I'd never been through. I'd never really been the guy. I'd never had to play through injury. I really had never played in the NFL.
It was a one game deal here. We were talking about this game and this game only...I have learned this week that people dogged the Seahawks because they don't think there is history, but there is history here.
It was a chance I shouldn't have taken. They had a good plan and executed it well. They blitzed early on, but we did a pretty good job of picking it up. After that, they kept seven and eight back in coverage a lot of the time.
They are actually fun to watch. It's fun to watch film because they are so good. But at the same time you realize you have to play them this week.