Big shoes left unfilled: an early injury moved Seahawks safety Etric Pruitt from the sideline to the field for Super Bowl 40--and left the secondary without its leader.(XL SUPER BOWL)

Matt Hasselbeck is sitting on carpeted steps outside the visiting locker room at Ford Field Saturday afternoon, the day before Super Bowl 40. The Seahawks quarterback is sipping Gatorade. A week in a hotel will dehydrate a guy.

He is talking about how the Seahawks' season has been about accountability. About how he and his teammates lock arms before every game in a giant circle in the middle of their locker room. About how some cry, some pray, some curse. About trusting that person next to you.

Hasselbeck has goose bumps.

"Someone is going to get hurt in this game," he says. "It's a fact. Someone who thinks he is a backup is going to have to play, and maybe play a huge role in this game. Who knows who that person is? You have to be ready."

Hasselbeck didn't know it at the time, but he was talking about Etric Pruitt.

Pruitt was cut by the Falcons twice last year after they drafted him in the sixth round. He spent part of that season on Atlanta's practice squad and most of this season on the Seahawks' inactive list. At the start of the year, it didn't look like he would sniff the field as the third-string safety. But his fate was to become a central figure for the Seahawks both in their Super Bowl loss and in their preparations for the game.

Pruitt was called on the field early in the second quarter after starting free safety Marquand Manuel injured his hip. All the speeches about accountability were lost in the glare of the country's brightest spotlight. "It was the Super Bowl," Pruitt said afterwards. "That made it more difficult and more nerve-wracking for me. They had to calm me down a whole lot."