DETROIT -- If it's going to be a physical, jarring Super Bowl, then a handful of Seattle's stars passed the first test yesterday.

Five frontline Seahawks players were in a passenger van that was rocked and damaged yesterday afternoon when collapsing concrete security posts arose from the ground in an entrance ramp to the Renaissance Center Marriott.

The accident happened around 5 p.m. while tailback Shaun Alexander, quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, tackle Walter Jones, guard Steve Hutchinson, defensive tackle Chuck Darby and safety Michael Boulware were riding from the team hotel in suburban Dearborn to the downtown complex where Super Bowl XL news conferences were being held.

The vehicle in front of them moved through the underground Marriott checkpoint, the concrete posts descending so it could get by. The posts snapped upward as the Seahawks van tried to pass, going 5-10 mph by most accounts.

"It felt like we were rear-ended," Hutchinson said.

"It just caught us off guard," Boulware added. "The bars started coming up out of the ground, and we hit it. It wasn't that fast. But it was fast enough to jar us pretty good. I don't think anybody was hurt. Just shocked."

Of whole Seahawks cloth

Steelers fans, and even a few players, can go ahead and carry Terrible Towels. The Seahawks have their version, a little piece of haberdashery they call Sweet Rags.

Darby came up with the idea just before the playoffs as a symbol of Seahawks unification. So he printed up a small hand towel with each player's number on it and passed them out.

He made them for staff, too, such as Mike Holmgren's rag bearing the initials HC for head coach.

"We built this together," said Darby, a Super Bowl XXXVII veteran with Tampa Bay. "It's about the brotherhood -- that close. Being the best."

Compare and contrast

Darby was asked to compare the Super Bowl teams on which he played.

"The Tampa Bay team?" he asked back. "Tampa had a fast defense. Get to the quarterback. Sideline to sideline. And we had leadership: Derrick Brooks, Sheldon Quarles, [Warren] Sapp and [John] Lynch."

He went on to say the Seahawks have a strong defense, too, but the underlying unspoken was that few defenses compare to the veteran, character, Pro Bowl lineup that the Buccaneers fielded.

Making them feel good

At one point in practice yesterday, Seattle's No. 1 defense intercepted three consecutive passes by backup quarterback Seneca Wallace.

"I didn't tell Seneca to throw the ball to the defense," coach Mike Holmgren told a pool reporter with a laugh.

"Sometimes you have to do that. You have to say, 'Feed them one.'

"Our defensive secondary has come together nicely. ... We weren't creating turnovers on defense for a good portion of the first half of the season, so we made it kind of a point of emphasis. And, like most things in our business, if you do that, good things happen.

"If a guy gets his hands on the ball and doesn't catch it, there is heck to pay from the rest of the guys on the defense."

Remembering Miller

Boulware, a second-year man from Florida State, remembers Steelers tight end Heath Miller too well from their Atlantic Coast Conference days.

"Size and hands," Boulware, a Seahawks safety, kept repeating, referring to Miller's merits.

"In college, that was my responsibility," covering Miller nonstop, Boulware added. "This week, it'll [spread] around."

12th Man fight

Seahawks president Tod Leiweke was quoted thusly in the Seattle Times about Texas A&M's lawsuit over trademark infringement with its "12th Man" phrase: "We'll focus on that when the playoffs end. This is not something that our marketing department introduced last summer. It's been part of the franchise since 1984."