The Seahawks set a franchise record under coach Pete Carroll last year, just not one that's going to be celebrated.

Seattle was penalized 138 times last year, most of any season in franchise history. There were also sorts of explanations for that from Seattle's youth to the physical style the Seahawks demand of their cornerbacks.

Here's where last year stood in terms of Seattle's flag-football history:

Reducing those penalties is a priority for Seattle this season, and when the Seahawks weren't flagged a single time in the first half of their exhibition opener, Carroll heralded it as progress.

The second exhibition game? No so much as Seattle was penalized five times in the first half and seven times in the first half and seven times overall. Those flags were front and center in Carroll's post-game assessment.

"A big issue," he said. "If you play like that you can't move the football so it's something that we have to do much better at. It's a big emphasis for us in this early preseason and we did not get that done."

Deuce Lutui was called for a personal foul in the third quarter, which Carroll labeled "ridiculous" afterward. He pulled Lutui from the field after that penalty though the guard later returned.

The Seahawks were perennially among the league's least penalized teams in Mike Holmgren's 10 years as coach. Seattle was the least-penalized team in the league in both 2004 and again in 2007. The Seahawks had the second-fewest penalties in the league in 2005.

Until Carroll arrived in 2010, the Seahawks had not ranked in the bottom half of the league in times penalized since Dennis Erickson's final season of 1998. The Seahawks were called for 101 penalties in Carroll's first season, the most since 1998, and then set the team record last year when they were penalized more often than any team not named the Oakland Raiders.