This is the fifth in a series of blogs from Seahawks safety Deon Grant, beginning his second season with the Seahawks and ninth in the NFL. A second round draft choice by the Carolina Panthers in 2000 out of Tennessee, he played four years with the Panthers before signing a 3-year free agent contract with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Seahawks snared him in free agency prior to the 2007 season. Grant will blog periodically throughout training camp for Seahawks.com on his experience and perceptions with the Seahawks. Grant, 29, spent his rookie year on injured reserve and has started 112 consecutive games since, the most of any other safety in the NFL.
Looking back on the game at Minnesota, I thought the young guys played awesome - offense and defense. To put up that many points showed a lot from the offense, and the second and third defenses allowed only three points, they were real good.
The first group on offense really did the job too, coming down and scoring. But it was a game that was much needed for the first defense because we're a veteran group. It just showed us we need to work hard and realize what got us to the point we think we're at right now. Just because we think it, doesn't mean we're there. That game was a reminder that we've got to pick it up and never go out flat.
It was some of thinking about Adrian Peterson when we shouldn't have been. Also, when you don't game plan a team - we don't do that in the preseason - it can be different. That game was more a case of bad eyes and bad leverage. Even though we didn't game plan, they didn't beat us on tricky stuff. They just beat us on bad eyes - regular bootlegs and play action. We had bad angles on certain tackles, and we took bad angles on certain breaks in pass coverage.
There were a bunch of things we didn't do right, and that's what we have to straighten that out, and there are ways to do that. We have to make sure when we don't game plan somebody in the preseason or our game plan is not up to par in the regular season, we have to be direct on our keys as far as leverage and eyes.
Basics should never be something that we have to get back to ... that's something we talked about in the first meeting after the game. That's something that should happen naturally. We all know the basics. It's not like we should have to go back to practice and spend a whole day working on. That's something instilled in us since Day 1 when we got to Seattle, so we've just got to get back to doing what we know how to do and make sure every time we step out on that field we do it to the best of our ability.
One thing we said as a defense - especially Lofa (Tatupu) and I - we can't come out as a defense cause a turnover or two and think we've got the game won. We've got to play the game the same way from the time we step on the field until the game is over.
We can't forget that we did that in Green Bay (last year), caused two turnovers, took the lead, and they ran up the score on us because we couldn't stop them. We did the same thing last week - caused a fumble, we scored, and then they put up 14 points on us.
So we know when we are on that field, we have to give 110 percent every time, be correct on everything we do, and stay that way until we get off that field. That's what this week will be all about for us against Chicago - get back to doing what we know how to do and build from that each week.
