Seattle, your season is officially not over. 

Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, despite having two fractured ribs, returned to the starting lineup Sunday against the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars and singlehandedly brought the Seahawks out of its coma-like state and back into the NFC West picture with Seattle’s 41-0 throttling of the Jaguars.

In his first action since leaving late in the first half in a Week-Two loss at San Francisco, Hasselbeck picked the Jaguars apart, completing 18 of 30 passes for 241 yards and four scores.

Completing passes with seven different players, the Seahawks’ quarterback found receivers Nate Burleson and TJ Houshmandzadeh the most. 

The two were the only receivers to have more than two catches in the game for the Seahawks (2-3), with six completions going to Burleson and five to Houshmandzadeh.  The two were also the sole recipients of Hasselbeck’s four touchdown passes.

Trailing by three with 2:38 to go in the first quarter, Jacksonville (2-3) was only two yards out from taking the lead with a touchdown.

On fourth-and-two, Jacksonville quarterback David Garrard tried to roll out and scramble along the right side into the end zone, but, finding no such room to do so, was forced to pull up short and an attempt a pass to reserve running back Greg Jones.  The pass went incomplete, as Garrard through the ball out of the back of the end zone, and the Seahawks turned the Jaguars away.

Jacksonville would not get back into the red zone until 46 seconds were left in the third quarter. 

As the drive continued into the fourth quarter, the Jaguars again were shut out of the end zone, this time thanks to Lawrence Jackson, who sacked Garrard on the second play of the quarter and forced the quarterback to fumble the ball away on third-and-six from the Seattle 13 yard line.  Rookie Nick Reed recovered the loose ball and motored 79 yards the other way for Seattle’s final scoring play of the game.

Reed and Jackson were just a part of a Seahawks defense that stymied one of the league’s more potent offenses.

Without receiver Mike Sims-Walker due to a violation of team rules, the Jaguars weren’t able to provide David Garrard with the kind of big-play passing threat that the quarterback had grown accustomed to hooking up with over the past three games.

Thus, the onus of offensive production fell on all-everything running back Maurice Jones-Drew, but the Seahawks shut down that avenue early.

Jones-Drew managed just 62 total yards of offense, with 46 of those coming on two plays.

At the half, Jacksonville only had 92 yards of total offense.  The Jaguars were able to double that total in the second half, but the team didn’t do much more than that, finishing the game with 199 total net yards.

With the win, Seattle moves to within a game of taking a share of the NFC West lead thanks to a 45-10 49ers loss at home to the Atlanta Falcons.

Next weekend the Seahawks play host to the Arizona Cardinals before Seattle takes its bye.  Kickoff is scheduled for 4:05pm Eastern.