The Seattle Seahawks face the Oakland Raiders in a nationally televised game. The Seahawks won 12-0 and face the St. Louis Rams on Sunday at Qwest Field.
Monday was all about football. The Seattle Seahawks shut out the Oakland Raiders 16-0 at Qwest Field in front of a national audience on television's "Monday Night Football."
Coach Mike Holmgren had said he wanted to stay with the running game, and Maurice Morris got the running game started again with his career-best of 30 carries for 138 yards and the second 100-yard game of his career.
"All week we've been stressing on let's get the running game going, and the line did a great job tonight as well as Mack Strong. The offensive line made it easy for us, they made big holes, they did what they had to do, and I just had to run," Morris said.
Quarterback Seneca Wallace found wide receiver Deion Branch for a 22-yard touchdown pass and led Seattle with 61 receiving yards.
"Seneca put the ball in the right position for me to make a play," Branch said. "He did a great job today and I think he did a great job last week. We didn't do a good enough around him to help support him and get the victory in Kansas City. I think he just ran a little bit more this week than he did last week."
The Seattle defense looked like it was back on track with nine sacks on Raiders' quarterback Andrew Walter. Defensive tackles Craig Terrill had three; Rocky Bernard had two as well as defensive end Grant Wistrom. Linebacker Julian Peterson added a sack for a team-leading eight sacks.
"Coach (Holmgren) got on us this week, we've been studying and working hard on the field ,and we knew that's what we had to do to get a win," Bernard said.
"We wanted to make sure they didn't have a balanced attack; we wanted to make sure we stopped the running game no big plays," Peterson said. "For the most part we did a good job of stopping the run. It was a good team effort all around, and if we continue to do that we'll have positive things like today."
The Seahawks scored on 20- and 25-yard field goals and another 20-yard field goal by Josh Brown to end the game.
With a full game lead over their division rivals, the St. Louis Rams, who are 4-4, the Seahawks are now 5-3 and set to take them on Sunday at Qwest Field in search of that NFC West division title.
Neither Matt Hasselbeck or Shaun Alexander are expected to play on Sunday.
