Catch Him if You Can

"It's the same problem as when you face Indianapolis: It's not just that one guy," San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Billy Davis said yesterday. "Usually it's pretty simple in the NFL. When you face a great running team, you move a safety up, get that eighth guy up there and shut down the run. When you face a team that passes better than it runs, you drop that safety back. But when you run up against Indy or Seattle, you have to stop both. Then it becomes a guessing game from play to play with their coordinator or [Seahawks Coach Mike] Holmgren. Both of those teams have a system that's been in place and players who have been together and are comfortable running it."

Pendergast said that in trying to slow Alexander defenders must play not only with aggression, but with precision. Having a defender get caught out of position when Alexander makes a sharp cut is what produces a long run.

"He has a lot of success on the perimeter," Pendergast said. "The most important thing to stress to your players when you go against a runner like that is to take good angles in pursuing him -- not only your defensive linemen and your linebackers, but also your defensive backs. If you don't take good angles, he can stop on a dime, reverse his field and make a long run."

Said Davis: "It's not a complicated running game. It's nothing fancy. It's just a system that suits him well. He uses his vision and speed and just kind of glides along, and then when he finds somebody out of his gap, he finds the hole and goes. The NFL is a game of mistakes. Everybody is going to make mistakes. And he's a guy who has the patience and the vision to see them, and then he's got the great speed to exploit them. It's deceptive speed, like Michael Vick, because he's so smooth in his stride. But he's really moving."

A defensive coach can out-plan the Seahawks, manage to have his players in the right spots to stop Alexander, and still fail if Alexander eludes defenders. Before the Eagles faced the Seahawks, Johnson stressed his defense couldn't afford to have botched tackles.

The popular notion around the league is that Alexander runs more often to the powerful left side of the offensive line, behind tackle Walter Jones and guard Steve Hutchinson. Not so, say the coaches who faced Seattle this season.

"They're fairly balanced," Pendergast said. "Every team that has a good running attack probably has a dominant side to go to. I would imagine that many of their runs are to that side. But they do a good job blocking for him on both sides of the line. You can't get too caught up in one side or the other."

Hoge said the Seahawks are most effective when Alexander runs behind Jones and Hutchinson, but they adjusted during the season when some opponents tried gimmick defenses to put extra players on that side. "If you try that," Hoge said, "they know how to make you pay for it."

Other defensive coaches might like to have Williams's paycheck, but they don't envy the assignment he faces this week.

"That's the best play-caller, the best game plan, the best scheme we faced," Pendergast said. "They're the toughest offense we went against. And then when you face them up there, they seem even a little bit faster. There's a reason they were number one in the league."