NFL seattle Seahawks

ARLINGTON, Texas -- The psyche and impressive football will of Seattle Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck seems as if it's held together by iron and steel. His body? It's simply not as impervious as his mental makeup.

Those cracked ribs, the chronic disc injury in his back, a sore right shoulder and assorted other aches that would put most NFL quarterbacks on the sideline did not make Hasselbeck a spectator in a runaway 38-17 Dallas Cowboys' victory over Seattle on Sunday at Cowboys Stadium.

When Cowboys defensive end Jason Hatcher plowed into Hasselbeck following a short 3rd-down completion to Deion Branch late in the third quarter, the Seahawks' gritty quarterback crumpled to the turf, grabbing his still-damaged ribcage and signaling to the sideline that his right shoulder also was injured.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- A month ago, the Dallas Cowboys were a 2-2 mess; inconsistent on offense, generous on defense and seemingly already out of contention in the cutthroat NFC East following a mistake-filled thrashing by the then-undefeated Broncos in Denver.

Flash forward to Sunday's lopsided 38-17 victory over the battered Seattle Seahawks -- the Cowboys' third consecutive win in their swank $1.2 billion home -- and Dallas' turnaround from bashed to brilliant seems accomplished.

Quarterback Tony Romo completed passes to 10 different receivers, including touchdown throws to the increasingly popular Miles Austin (five catches, 61 yards), as well as to the forgotten Sam Hurd and the once-missing Roy Williams. Romo's performance, where he hit on 21-of-36 passes for 256 yards, capped off the first three-game span without an interception in his seven-year career.

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Walter Jones has been a staple for the Seattle Seahawks since 1997, but the Seahawks are going to have to play the entire 2009 season without him. Wednesday, during a press conference, it was announced that Jones has been placed on injured reserve, ending his season. Jones hasn't been able to shake the pain in his knee, which stemmed from microfracture surgery in December and then another scope on the same left knee in training camp.

The venerable left tackle has started 180 games on his quarterback's blind side, racking up an impressive resume in the process. The future Hall of Famer has made nine Pro Bowls and been elected as a first-team All-NFL player four times in his illustrious career.

When an offensive linemen gets injured, very few fans notice. But if you want a good explanation for why the Seahawks laid an egg this week against the Cardinals you can point the finger at Kyle Williams. The Seahawks sure did, as Williams went from starting on Sunday to out of work on Tuesday.

Williams had been battlefield promoted from the practice squad to the starting lineup when a desperate Seahawks team lost its third starting left tackle of the season. Pro Bowler Walter Jones has yet to play this season because of a knee injury. Seattle was actually well prepared for his injury, as replacement Sean Locklear has been prepped as a left tackle of the future.

Jacksonville has suspended Mike Sims-Walker, the team's leading wide receiver, for Sunday's game at Seattle for an unspecified violation of team rules, Michael C. Wright reported on Twitter.

Sims-Walker, a second-year player out of Central Florida, has been a surprise star through four weeks -- he's made 19 catches for 278 yards and three touchdowns, and has developed into one of the Jaguars' most consistent offensive threats.

Rookie Mike Thomas will start in Sims-Walker's place.

Every week we're taking a look at sacks around the league. We looked at Aaron Rodgers and the Packers' sack problem in our main Between the Lines feature this week, but here are some other notes from Week Four.

• If a Dan Marino-style quick release is an offensive lineman's best friend, Seneca Wallace is becoming a lineman's worst nightmare. Wallace stepped out of bounds for a sack on a play where he could have easily thrown the ball away for an incompletion for the second time in two games. In this case, Wallace rolled out of the pocket and had plenty of time to throw. Eventually linebacker Freddy Keiaho, who wasn't a rusher on the play, came up to force Wallace to make up his mind. Instead of simply tossing the ball out of bounds (he was out of the pocket so any pass beyond the line of scrimmage would have not drawn an intentional grounding penalty), Wallace stepped out of bounds five yards behind the line of scrimmage. It goes into the books as the easiest sack of Keiaho's career, and clearly angered the Seahawks' offensive line--center Chris Spencer is seen throwing up his arms in disbelief at the end of the play.

Zebra Report is FanHouse's analysis of actual NFL rules and how they are to be applied ... because most fans think they could do a better job than the NFL officials, yet definitely could not. Click here for an introduction as to how we do things.

For the second straight week, the Houston Texans' offense was involved in a controversial call on a would-be touchdown. In Week 2, many thought they were the beneficiary of a bad call. In Week 3, the proverbial shoe was on the other foot. Let's get right to it.

Every week, NFL FanHouse hits the lowlights from Sunday's action, looking at those players who did the most to move their head coaches that much closer to returning to the Bed and Breakfast business.

Football is very often a game in which the 21 men not carrying the ball all do significant work in determining what happens on the given play. Field goals and extra points are usually the exception. While, yes, there is the occasional bad snap or missed block that throws everything into oblivion, most of the time kicking is like clockwork -- the ball is safely pinned to the ground by the holder, and everybody becomes irrelevant except for one guy. The kicker.

I think it's pretty stupid, personally.

Olindo Mare has made over 80 percent of his field-goal attempts during a long 14-year NFL career. So let's just say that Sunday was not his finest effort.

It's rare that a coach will single out a player after a loss -- and even rarer that he'll more or less blame an entire defeat on the efforts of one guy, but that's what Seattle coach Jim Mora did to Mare after the Seahawks kicker missed two of six field-goal attempts in a 25-19 loss to Chicago.

"There' s no excuses for those," Mora said in his post-game press conference of Mare's misses. "If you're a kicker in the National Football League, you should make those kicks. Bottom line. End of story. Period. No excuses. No wind. Doesn't matter."

Since arriving in Chicago, Jay Cutler's been fighting the stigma that he's more of a stat-monger than a winner. The only way to change the feelings of the general public is to go out and win tough games. Anyone can look good during a blowout of an inferior opponent.

For the second consecutive week, Cutler has won close games in come-from-behind fashion. Last week, he led the Bears on a 72-yard, game-tying touchdown drive and then a 41-yard game-winning field goal drive against the Steelers. Sunday afternoon, Cutler brought the Bears back from an early 13-0 deficit to lead 17-13. The Bears lost the lead, but that was of no consequence, as Cutler again led them on a game-winning drive.

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