When the Seahawks cut T.J. Houshmandzadeh, the natural question was who would step up as the No. 1 receiver for a team that figures to air it out a bit this season under offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates.

By first impressions, Mike Williams is ready to handle that role as he returned to the NFL after a two-year absence and pulled in four passes for 64 yards in Seattle’s 31-6 victory over San Francisco.

Williams, one of the more interesting comeback stories in the league this season, dropped the first pass thrown to him Sunday on a short out route where the ball clanged off his hands.

But on the Seahawks’ next drive, Matt Hasselbeck hit him with a 35-yard connection, Williams shedding a tackler and nearly scoring with a full-out dive toward the goal line.

Unlike Houshmandzadeh’s constant stream of bravado, Williams has let his game do most of the talking since arriving in Seattle. He’s an interesting guy with a sense of humor, but he’s stayed low-key in his approach since his arrival in Seattle and that didn’t change after his first game back.

“The play before I had the easy drop, so for them to come right back and call my number and get right back into it and make a play to put us in position, that’s just my job,” he said. “It’s what I’m supposed to do. I’m trying to play at a high level.”

But he also thinks people have undersold the Seahawks and he doesn’t hesitate to say so.

“A lot of people didn’t give us a chance,” he said. “But we’ve been saying all along, people don’t know what we’re doing here. People don’t know what we put in during the week, how we prepare and how much it means to us. So we’re just going to take this game and move on.”

When it comes to being “all in” on the Seahawks’ shuffling roster, Williams is first in line.

“Everyone wants to focus on the moves, but they don’t want to focus on why the moves are made and more importantly, who the guys are that we’re bringing in here,” Williams said. “Across the board, offense, defense, guys like Stacy Andrews, who’s played in this league, and Michael Robinson, who’s a tough guy, a core guy.

“I think that’s what people don’t take into consideration, that we’re bringing in people that fit what we want to do, that fit our culture, that fit the direction we’re going. If the roster changes next week, those new guys are going to get here, they’re going to tap in, they’re going to buy in and we’re going to rally around them and teach them the ways of how we do things and try to keep this thing going.”

Not that everything came easily Sunday. Williams dropped two catchable balls. Hasselbeck’s first pass was intercepted. The Seahawks trailed 6-0 before they picked up their initial first down.

“We were a little shaky early, but when we got rolling, we got rolling,” Williams said. “We started feeding off each other, off the defense and special teams. That energy is just contagious. The higher the energy level, it seems like guys are going to go out and do super-human things, I guess.

“I’m happy for Coach. Matt gave him the game ball for his first win and I’m happy for him. Coming from SC, he was great there. Coming here and starting, it’s just let’s keep building, keep building.”

Carroll said his former USC standout had a good first step back.

“I thought Mike played a good, solid game,” Carroll said. “He had one ball that got away from him, but in general he played a good solid football game and gave us the big ‘X’ position that we wanted.

“Mike’s just getting started. We had so many first time things happening to us; it’s going to take us quite a while to really figure out what we’ve got. But Mike had a good first game.”

For his part, Williams said it’s fun being back with his old college coach. Things haven’t changed much over the five years since.

“Not at all,” Williams said. “Same attention to detail. The same ‘compete, compete, compete.’ I think he’s still trying to find a way to have fun with it. He understands the guys on our team. Being around high-profile guys in college, he knows how to manage egos.

“We’ve got a good group of guys. We’ve got a group of guys across the board, players like coaches, coaches like players and we do this for each other. This is a start and we’ll get back to work this week and get ready for Denver.”

As for Housh? He’ll make his debut for Baltimore on Monday when the Ravens face the New York Jets.