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Seahawks bruised
A 52-7 beating provokes remarks like that.
"Denver played well," Patera, coach of the Seattle Seahawks, said in understatement following the Broncos' convincing National Football League exhibition victory Saturday night over the winless Seahawks at Mile High Stadium.
"They have great speed and quickness and the quarterbacks threw on the money better than in any games we'd seen them in. They have a tough defense, but we didn't think they'd do that well offensively," Patera added.
The Broncos, scoring almost at will on the ground and through the air, rolled up a 38-7 halftime lead and coasted the rest of the way.
The expansion Seahawks' only touchdown came in the second period when quarterback Jim Zorn hit Bob Picard in traffic for a 14-yard TD that capped a 62-yard drive.
Denver, now 3-2 in preseason play, scored on its first four offensive possessions, and cornerback Louis Wright scooped up a Seattle fumble and ran 27 yards for still another touchdown.
"It's nice to have one like this for a change," a pleased Denver coach John Ralston remarked. "But we got all the breaks. It was a good game for us at this point."
Ralston was particularly pleased with his offense, which had shown little spark in four previous exhibition games.
"They're a good team, and everything they did was right," Patera said. "Neither our rookies nor veterans played very well. When the other team does, this is what's going to happen."
Patera also was a bit philosophical about the loss, Seattle's fourth in four games.
"One game isn't going to throw our progress into the dump," he said. "We just took one step backward tonight. But we're not going to cut 60 players and bring in 60 new ones."
In a tighter game in Honolulu, San Francisco eked out a 17-16 victory over San Diego. "We were outplayed - you can see that from the statistics," rookie Coach Monte Clark of San Francisco said. But the 49ers are 4-0 on the strength of a 38-yard field goal by Steve Mike-Mayer with two seconds left.
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