Seahawks Blog

Seneca Wallace wore a number of hats on Sunday in San Francisco.

He also had two helmets.

One is equipped with a radio transmitter given to NFL quarterbacks. That's the one Wallace would wear should he replace Matt Hasselbeck at quarterback.

Wallace's other helmet has no radio, just the run-of-the-mill model that every player other than the quarterbacks wear. That's the one Wallace wore onto the field for his four plays Sunday when he put on his run-catch-pass show in San Francisco.

The Seahawks even had a person on the sideline responsible for holding onto one of the helmets at all times and making sure Wallace had the right one.

"Now tell me we're not thorough," Holmgren joked.

Equipment manager Eric Kennedy found someone just for that task of holding one of Wallace's helmet. One problem. Holmgren didn't recognize him so when the coach saw an unfamiliar fellow holding a Seahawks helmet on the sidelines, he worried a heist was underway.

"I thought he was stealing one of our helmets," Holmgren said.

No, the coach was told. That's just Wallace's helmet.

A knight has a squire to bring him his weapons, Wallace had an assistant to hold onto one of his helmets.

NFL rules allow the quarterback to have a radio transmitter in his helmet that allows him to hear instructions from the coach until the final 15 seconds of the play clock. The rules also say the offense can only have one radio-equipped helmet on the field at a time. That's why all the radio-equipped helmets have a green sticker on the back. It allows referees to keep track. Holmgren said a team would receive a pretty substantial fine if it violated that rule.

Holmgren was on the competition committee when the one-helmet restriction was first implemented, and he said it was prompted by examples such as the Steelers' use of Kordell Stewart. Pittsburgh could move Stewart to wide receiver and bring another quarterback into the game, thereby giving the Steelers the possibility of having two players with radio-equipped helmets on the field. That led to the resolution that even if a team had multiple quarterbacks on the field at the same time, only one of them could have a helmet.

So that explains why Wallace had two helmets to account for all his jobs on Sunday.