Hasselbeck returns for Monday game against Packers   

Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck will return on Monday night when the first-place Seattle Seahawks host the Green Bay Packers.

Hasselbeck has missed the last four games with a sprained knee ligament. The Seahawks went 2-2 with backup Seneca Wallace as the starter. Wallace was intercepted three times in the Seahawks' 20-14 loss at San Francisco last week.

Last season, Hasselbeck led the Seahawks (6-4) to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history and was the starting quarterback for the NFC in the Pro Bowl.


While Hasselbeck returns, Brett Favre will make his 252nd consecutive start, including playoffs, for the Packers (4-6).

The NFL's only three-time MVP, Favre left the Packers' 35-0 loss to New England late in the second quarter with an elbow injury Backup Aaron Rodgers, a first-round pick in 2005, played the rest of the way and suffered a broken foot, ending his season.

Favre won all three of his MVP awards from 1995-97 and a Super Bowl title with Mike Holmgren as his coach. Holmgren left the Packers after the 1998 season to sign an eight-year, $32 million deal with the Seahawks.

Holmgren failed to win a playoff game in his first six years in Seattle before guiding the Seahawks to Super Bowl XL last February.

Favre is 3-1 against his former coach, although all of the previous games were at Lambeau Field. Favre lost the first meeting, 27-7, on November 1, 1999, and won the last three - 35-13 on October 5, 2003; 33-27 in overtime in the wild-card round on January 4, 2004; and 23-17 last January 1.

Hasselbeck, a former backup to Favre, was the Seahawks' starter for the last three contests. He was rested in the second half of last January's game since Seattle already had clinched homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.

Seattle leads San Francisco and St. Louis by 1 1/2 games in the NFC West.

The Packers are in third place in the NFC North behind Chicago (9-2) and Minnesota (5-6).