SEATTLE -- Except for a few bright spots, the Seattle Seahawks' pre-season victory over the Buffalo Bills Saturday was easily forgettable.
Amidst 37 dropped passes, five missed field goals and 28 third-down conversion failures, Seattle emerged with a 7-3 decision.
Reserve quarterback Jim Zorn provided the margin of victory with one quick completion to tight end Mike Tice at the close of a lackluster first half. Buffalo struck back with a field goal by Joe Danelo early in the third quarter.
And that was about it.
'There's not a whole lot to say about the game,' Seahawks' coach Chuck Knox concluded. 'Obviously, we're pretty rusty. We made a lot of mistakes, but we won -- that's the important thing.'
'We made a lot of mistakes,' echoed Bills' coach Kay Stephenson after his first match against Knox, his former boss at Buffalo.
'Anytime we play against coach Knox it's going to be hard hitting - the Seahawks are a good team to contend with.'
The final score might indicate a tough, defensive battle, but the game was anything but that. Rather, lack of offensive coordination was the key to the contest.
Both teams would have wound up with only one third down conversion in 16 tries had Seattle not made two more in the final quarter. Seattle receivers dropped 20 of 35 passes while the Bills were barely better, catching 17 of 34.
Seattle outgained Buffalo through the air with 182 yards to the Bills' 125, but wouldn't have has an edge were it not for rookie Steve Wray's dazzling 61-yard completion to Darrell Turner in the third quarter that added some sparkle to an otherwise drab second half.
'We played almost everybody,' said Zorn, 'and when you play guys like that, you're bound not to have cohesiveness on offense. Both teams made a tremendous amount of errors.'
'They (the Bills) were tougher than Tampa Bay,' said Seattle starting quarterback Dave Krieg, referring to the Seahawks' crushing 38-0 victory of a week before. 'We didn't play as well on offense. We really didn't get into the flow. The defense kept us in the game.'
