But the time Hasselbeck just spent at his home in eastern Washington came with a twist: The Hasselbeck “family” was expanded to include trainer Ken Croner, who put Hasselbeck through two workouts a day.
Just part of the offseason routine when you’re coming off a frustrating season that saw Hasselbeck miss nine games because of a bulging disk in his back.
“June 12th comes and it’s a ghost town – everyone is on vacation,” Hasselbeck said Monday. “So what I’ve been doing was good to not fall off. I felt I was really making progress, and this let me continue to progress in different areas.”
Training camp opens on Friday, when they will practice in the afternoon.
But Hasselbeck isn’t even taking it easy this week. He was leaving for Vancouver, British Columbia, and two days of two-a-day sessions with Rick Celebrini – the same back specialist he started seeing last season, and the same one who has worked in the past with NBA star Steve Nash.
“Rather than just going through the motions this week – like guys do, like I used to – this is a chance to just get stronger,” Hasselbeck said. “So if I get hit in the ribs this year, it’s like a boxer. You want to be able to take a hit and just be as strong as you possibly can. What I’m looking forward to is getting to a point where we can start focusing on real things.”
There are other issues, because the Seahawks’ season of change extends beyond the fact that Jim Mora has stepped in as coach for Mike Holmgren. Training camp will open at Virginia Mason Athletic Center for the first time, after the team moved into its new digs on the shores of Lake Washington last August.
“People say, ‘What are worried about going into camp? Is it your back? Or the new offense?’ ” Hasselbeck said. “I’m like, ‘Nah. I’m confident that stuff will all be fine.”
There’s also a new offensive coordinator (Greg Knapp) and new language to describe plays similar to those in the hybrid of the West Coast offense run the past 10 seasons by Holmgren.
Whereas Hasselbeck previously would have used certain verbiage to call one play in the huddle, it’s now completely different for virtually the same play.
Those are the things that concern Hasselbeck.
“I like the new offense, but it’s hard,” he said. “It would be like someone moving some letters around on your keyboard. It’s like, ‘Wait a second, that’s not where that letter goes.’
“There’s a lot of studying. I got sent some homework this offseason, with a return FedEx envelope. That’s the first time I ever had to do that.”
Hasselbeck hasn’t just done extra studying this offseason, he also has gone back and looked at how Knapp’s offense was run by Steve Young and Jeff Garcia in San Francisco, Michael Vick and Matt Schaub in Atlanta and Daunte Culpepper, Andrew Walter and JaMarcus Russell in Oakland.
“The thing I want to try and do is develop Greg’s offense and make it our own,” Hasselbeck said. “I know the style I would like to put on it. It’s certainly a lot more like Steve Young and Jeff Garcia.
“I want to make it my own, and I think my style of play is more like those two guys. But it’s not just me. We’ve got to make this the Seahawks’ offense.”
The aspect of his preparations that most are interested in are physical, not mental. Just how will Hasselbeck respond when he takes that first hit in the preseason?
“That’s not even my issue,” he said. “My issue is sitting down and not moving around.”
The companion to that response is all the work he has done the past eight months. His weight is down (to 238 on the Seahawks’ scale; not the 234 that was reported from his home scale). So is his body fat (he was at 14 percent in June, but is aiming to be at 10-12 percent Friday).
“I haven’t traveled. I’ve turned down every opportunity to travel or go anywhere,” Hasselbeck said when asked how he has spent the past six weeks.
With one big exception: A trip with his wife, Sarah, for her induction into her high school’s hall of fame.
“Other than that, I’ve been in eastern Washington training,” he said, running through a list of training partners that included teammates
Which brings us back to that “vacation” home, which Hasselbeck had built specifically for this period before the opening of training camp.
The yard? “It’s the size of the routes we run the most of,” Hasselbeck said.
The pool? “It’s one depth, for pool drills and pool running,” he said.
The outcome? “It’s been good,” Hasselbeck said. “Doing football-specific stuff, on the field, getting ready for this time.”
