Charlie Whitehurst Trying To Keep His Cool As He Prepares For First Ever NFL Start

This is the moment you’ve been waiting for Charlie Whitehurst. Time to step up and prove why the Seattle Seahawks traded for you this past offseason. With Matt Hasselbeck out for Week 9, the former third-stringer for the Chargers gets his first NFL start this Sunday. Unfortunately for him, the opponent isn’t an easy one – the New York Giants, who have been harassing opposing quarterbacks all season long with their relentless pass rush. A nice performance by Whitehurst may just usher in the end of the Hasselbeck era in Seattle, so no pressure kid! Whitehurst hastily joined 710 ESPN in Seattle to talk about preparing for his first ever NFL start this weekend, how the rapid crammed-pack schedule of preparation hasn’t allowed him to do much over-thinking about his big opportunity, how he’s been hard at work this offseason and early in the year preparing as best he could from his backup role, and how he doesn’t feel like the Seahawks will have to limit their offensive playbook because of his inexperience or unfamiliarity with the playbook.

On if it’s not such a bad thing that there’s not much time to reflect on his opportunity given how much work he’s got ahead of him this next few days:

“Yeah it’s amazing how fast the information moves. You think you might play, but you might not. But I definitely was preparing like I was going to play, and now I’ve got to make it happen.”
On what he thinks he can bring to the table that perhaps Hasselbeck wasn’t:
“I don’t know. I don’t really think in those terms. You try to look at some of the good things he’s done and do some of those. He’s been efficient with the football, he’s taken care of the ball the last few weeks, so that’s definitely something I’m going to try to do.”

On if he feels like he has a good enough command of the offense for the Seahawks to not limit what their offensive gameplan:

“Yeah, yeah absolutely. I think the game plan would have been the same if he’d played. So I’m comfortable with everything we’re doing and I plan on playing well.

On how prepared he thinks a backup QB can really get while just watching rather than playing:

“Yeah, definitely there’s no substitute for being in there and getting the plays, repping the plays. But that’s one of the challenges about being a backup is you have to be able to do it watching. So I think I’ve gotten better at that ion the last few years, since I’ve been watching Matt.”