The Spokesman Review was there.



September 1976

Skins praise Patera's Boys
(AP)


WASHINGTON (AP) - Veteran Washington quarterback Bill Kilmer, who knows the problems of an expansion team, had nothing but praise for the Seattle Seahawks after their uninspired 31-7 loss to the Redskins Sunday.

"They'll win some games," said Kilmer, who played with the expansion New Orleans Saints for four years from 1967-70. "They have more talent than we did with New Orleans. They have guys like Mike Curtis and Ed Bradley who have been with winners."

Kilmer said one of the biggest difficulties the Seahawks will encounter will be games on the road.

"It's so tough to win on the road," he said. "You get in a strange town on a Saturday, your schedule and eating is thrown out of kilter. It's more difficult for an expansion team because everybody is new to each other."

Kilmer predicted that the Seahawks would win more than three games this season but said, "the victories will come at home."

Veteran Redskins defensive tackle Diron Talbert also called the Seahawks, "the best expansion team to come into football. They'll win four or five games.

"The one thing about them is that they never give up," he said. "They keep coming back at you."

Nothing drastic

Seattle Coach Jack Patera, however, wasn't as excited about his team's prospects as the Redskins were even though there would be no major changes made during the week.

"I'm not going to make any wholesale changes," he said. "I think we have the best team playing and we'll go with them." If we don't have the best players out there, we'll make changes, but they won't come just because we lost one game."

Patera said he thought the Seahawks had a chance for an upset if they played the game he believed they are capable of.

"It was a very poor performance by everybody," he said. "I didn't see anything that pleased me.

"We felt the Redskins were a veteran team but if we played anywhere as well as we could, it would have been close. I felt this team was ready, but apparently they weren't."

Patera said he thought the Seahawks played badly against the rush in the season opener against St. Louis, another loss, "but I thought we could do better than we did today."

"The Redskins' offensive line is not that effective against anyone else," he said. "The Cardinals offensive line is better than this one."

Seattle quarterback Jim Zorn merely said: "We just didn't get it rolling. It was a tough loss. You can't pin the loss on anyone, offense or defense. You just can't put a finger on it."


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