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Even though Nate Burleson suffered a season-ending knee injury in the first half of last season's opener, the Seahawks’ split end has watched the video of the team’s shorthanded efforts in 2008.

In addition to Burleson, Bobby Engram, Deion Branch, Ben Obomanu and Logan Payne also missed time because of injuries last season – making it a combined 56 games. That too often left the passing game in the hands Koren Robinson, Courtney Taylor, Billy McMullen, Keary Colbert, Michael Bumpus and Jordan Kent.

Flash forward to the team’s training camp practices this summer.

Burleson is healthy, as are Obomanu, Payne and Branch. T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Deon Butler were added in free agency and the draft, respectively. Taylor, Bumpus, and Kent also are back, and better for having been forced to play last season.

“It’s pretty much a 180,” Burleson said. “To sit back and analyze who’s on the field now, and then to look back at how it was last season, it’s completely different.

“Last year, we just couldn’t get right at the wide receiver position. This year, well, just look at what we’ve been doing out here.”

That would be making plays. From Burleson, to Houshmandzadeh, to Branch, to Butler, to Obomanu, to Payne, to Taylor, to Kent, to Bumpus, and even Mike Hass – the former Biletnikoff Award winner from Oregon State who was signed in January.

The Friday Night Lights practice at the University of Washington was the best example of this show-of-hands approach in a training camp already filled with impressive efforts by the receivers.

Taylor caught a pair of touchdown passes at Husky Stadium. Branch returned from missing three practices to rest his surgically repaired left knee and make a couple of nice receptions. Houshmandzadeh ducked behind tight coverage from cornerback Ken Lucas in coming up with his best catch of the evening – promoting a chorus of “Hoooush” from the estimated group of 3,000. Hass made a falling catch of a deep pass along the sideline. Obomanu reminded everyone of what could have been last season, if he had been available when all the other receivers went down. Butler flashed his speed on several occasions. Burleson caught everything that was thrown his way. Kent capped the good-hands effort with a one-handed catch in the end zone on the final play. 

“The key for us is just coming out here and having fun,” Burleson said. “And also making plays. There’s a certain part of this game that we need to have before the season starts. We need to have confidence, and that starts at practice.

“We’ve had some huge plays in these first eight days of camp. And that’s just a great sign of what’s possible this year.”

If, that is, the receivers continue to show as well – and as much improvement – as they have in the first week of camp.

“There were some good points and there’s points we need to improve on, definitely,” receivers coach Robert Prince said after the Friday night practice. “Our guys, they like when the lights come on, they like when there’s fans here. It gets them juiced up and gives them a little more energy.”

Burleson and Prince will get no argument from quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who missed nine starts last season because of a bulging disk in his back.

“It definitely feels like we’re safe there,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of good options there.”

So many, in fact, that  – as crazy as this might sound – the unit is the strength of the team as it heads toward next Saturday night’s preseason opener against the Chargers in San Diego.

“I don’t want to get too excited, and I definitely don’t want to take the shine of any other position, but we’re taking pride in who we have,” Burleson said.

Not that a wide receiver being confident should surprise anyone – especially not one like Burleson, who always looks at the glass as not just half full but overflowing.

“To be honest, we’ve got to be confident,” Burleson said. “We’ve got go out there and approach it as if we want to be the best. If we go out there and say, ‘Ah, we just want to be all right,’ or ‘We want to settle for the middle of the pack,’ that’s what we’ll be.

“With the guys we have, there’s no reason we shouldn’t shoot for being the most dominant, the most threatening receiving corps in the league.”

Especially when you toss in tight end John Carlson’s ability to exploit the middle of the field. It should be an even bigger factor this season with Burleson appearing fully recovered from tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, the addition of the sure-handed Houshmandzadeh and the speed Butler brings to the mix.

“I’m not even thinking about my knee,” said Burleson, who has been practicing without the cumbersome brace he wore during the spring minicamps and OTA sessions.

“The thing that’s been bothering me is that my hamstrings are just purely fatigued.”

But that’s how a wide receiver is supposed to feel after practicing 12 times in eight days.

“It’s good to be fatigued from other things besides rehabbing my knee,” Burleson said.

After last year, it’s the kind of expected ache that hurts so good.