Not too shabby for a wide receiver who missed last season after tearing a knee ligament in the opener. But there are other numbers Burleson does not want to concern himself with – like what the team’s record is now, and what it might be at the end of the season.
“I’m not a numbers guy,” said Burleson, who is having a comeback-player-of-the-year season with 38 receptions for 487 yards and three TDs. “I hate thinking about what it takes to get into the playoffs; how many games we need to win; what’s going on in our division.
“I hate thinking that. I want to go game to game.”
Enter
It was Branch who approached Burleson with the theory that the season is not over, despite the Seahawks’ 2-5 record and the fact that they have been outscored 65-20 in their current two-game losing streak.
The Seahawks have seven games left, starting with Sunday’s matchup against the 1-6 Detroit Lions at Qwest Field. Down the road, they will host the San Francisco 49ers (3-4), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-7) and Tennessee Titans (1-6). In a road lineup that includes the Arizona Cardinals (4-3), Minnesota Vikings (7-1), Houston Texans (5-3) and Green Bay Packers (4-3), there’s also a rematch with the St. Louis Rams (1-7).
“Deion mentioned to me, ‘Hey, I broke down the numbers and I still see some light,’ ” Burleson said.
According to this Deion digitalism, the opportunity to go 7-2, finish 9-7 and potentially make the playoffs is still there – because the Seahawks are, despite their 2-5 start, only two games behind the Cardinals in the NFC West.
Rather than dismiss Branch’s logic, Burleson was buoyed by the possibilities.
“Even just sitting back and not expecting us to go into that conversation, I was kind of motivated by that,” Burleson said. “It’s a difficult task. It’s not easy. But it is possible.
“At 2-5, I needed to hear that.”
Before the Seahawks can finish 7-2, of course, they must go 1-0. Then, they must win their other three games at home. Then, they must take care of the Rams in St. Louis, upset the Cardinals in Arizona and find a way to steal another win on the road.
Crazy? Perhaps. But not as insane as simply giving up at this point, and pointing to next season.
“I started to think, ‘What if we do go 7-2?’ ” Burleson said. “We’re obviously finding our niche. So it was good to hear.”
That, of course, is the key to all of this, and any of this – the Seahawks finding their niche. They must become more balanced on offense, more disruptive on defense, more productive on special teams and more consistent across the board.
It was the way they played in shutting out Rams and Jaguars.
“You figure the games that we have won, and how impressive they were,” Burleson said. “You know, everybody likes to say they’re not good teams that we beat. But we played well in those games.”
The Seahawks actually played well at the start of Sunday’s loss to the Cowboys in Dallas. They did force a punt on the Cowboys’ game-opening series. They did drive 69 yards to a go-ahead field goal. Then the proverbial roof fell in, as the Cowboys scored three times in the first half and three more times in the second half.
“To start off the game in Dallas where – honestly, asking anybody who was watching, from friends to family to even you guys holding these recorders and microphones – in that first quarter, even you guys were thinking, ‘You know what? They might pull this thing off,’ ” Burleson said. “We were thinking we were going to pull it off.
“That kind of gave me the confidence to say, ‘We are the team we can be.’ ”
