Congrats Phils! That's enough joy for Philly this week, I think.

World Series Champion Jamie Moyer Sez.. Go Hawks!

Seahawks 34, Niners 13

There's lots of room for you on the bandwagon,
The road may be rough, the weather may forget us
But won't we all parade around and sing our songs,
A magic kingdom, open-armed
Greet us hello, bravo, name in lights
Passing on the word to fellow passengers and players, passing in,
Until you're tired looking at all the flags
And all the banners waving
This is some parade, yesiree Bob
Could we have known?
Yesiree Bob, could we have known?

-R.E.M.

For only the 2nd day all year, the Seahawks somewhat resembled the team we thought they'd be in 2008. The defense put the clamps on SF, and the offense avoided any major mistakes. 2-5 is still an ugly record, but this team suddenly has new life. They're out of the NFC West dungeon and only trail Arizona by two games (with a possibly huge dust-up looming in Seattle three weeks from now). Leonard Weaver and Patrick Kerney had standout performances, and K-Rob deserves special props for the block he threw to spring 43 for the deathblow TD.

The best news is that these games, for now, are still meaningful. The same can't be said for the Niners anymore, can it? Philly is coming to town next Sunday, and I request and require all y'all to leave McNabb with burst eardrums.

To steal a line from Andrew Sullivan... Know Hope.

Top 10 memorable wins from forgettable seasons

The Seahawks Space Monkeys bandwagon is getting better gas mileage everyday as the faithless and faint-hearted hop off. No matter how bad it gets, I'll still be watching though.. and not just out of obligation or loyalty. I don't want to miss out on a game like any of these... The only rule for this list is that the games must be from seasons the Seahawks finished with a losing record.

10. 10/17/76 Seahawks 13, Buccaneers 10

I was a one-year-old crapping in a diaper at the time, but I thought the first win in franchise history should make the list....

9. 12/22/02 Seahawks 30, Rams 10

This was a pretty unremarkable contest, but it was my first game at Seahawks Stadium, so it makes the list.

8. 12/15/02 Seahawks 30, Falcons 24 (OT)

Mike Vick and the playoff-bound Falcons were expected to roll the 4-9 Hawks, but Shaun Alexander gave them what-for until they cried sasafrass! His TD in overtime capped a 128-yard rushing performance and sent all those with black #7 jerseys home confused and unhappy.

7. 11/3/96 Seahawks 23, Oilers 16

1996 was an utterly forgettable 7-9 dirge of a season, but how can anyone forget the way this one finished? Instead of Houston hitting a chip-shot FG for a 19-16 win, the Hawks blocked the kick and returned it for the winning TD on the last play of regulation. This was during my six years at Western, and I was too busy having fun to remember much about those faceless Seahawk teams.. But this one really stuck in my head.

6. 9/29/02 Seahawks 48, Vikings 23

SA's FIVE td half... on Sunday Night Football, no less! This one is also significant as the first great performance at Seahawks Stadium.

5. 12/6/81 Seahawks 27, Jets 23

In Dave Krieg's first NFL start, Jimmy the Greek famously gave the Seahawks zero chance against the playoff-bound Jets. Oh well, the guy also said this:



Asstard.

That loss to the Sad-sack Hawks kept NYJ from the AFC east title in '81, and they went down against Buffalo in the wild card game that year. Ha-ha!

4. 12/16/00 Seahawks 27, Raiders 24

As I said before in this space:

Despite a 5-9 record at the time, we gave the AFC West Champion Raiders all they could handle. Y'all might remember this: trailing 24-17 in the 4th quarter, Ricky Watters broke off a huge run, but was caught near the goal line and fumbled. However, the Raiders rolled back into the end zone with the ball and it was ruled a safety! The legions of Oakland fans in attendance bitched and moaned like Dino Rossi, but the Hawks had the ball down by 5... Jon Kitna had his last memorable moment as a Seahawk when he drove Seattle the length of the field for the winning score and 2-point conversion.

It was a rare moment of joy in a lost season, and the sweet lamentations of all those Raider rooting assfucks still echo in my brainpan.

3. 10/27/02 Seahawks 17, Cowboys 14

Emmitt Smith did masturbate the ball down the feel enough to get the all-time rushing crown that day, but the afterthought Hawks left Big D with a last-second win that no one outside of our fan base remembers.

2. 11/16/81 Seahawks 44, Chargers 23

The mighty Chargers rolled into town for a MNF showdown against Seattle. Considering SD had not yet EVER lost to the Seahawks, it looked like an easy romp over the 3-7 Hawks. Right? I'll let Col. Matrix take it from here...



WRONG!

1. 11/30/92 Seahawks 16, Broncos 13 (OT)

I wrote a whole post about this one earlier... Here's a taste:

Both offenses flailed about like two drunk sorority chicks in a cat fight, and the Hawks were somehow only down 13-6 in the final minutes... A face-mask penalty on a punt return set us up at the Denver 35, but it still felt like it would take a miracle to put 7 on the board. Somehow Stan Gelbaugh got us inside the 10, and on
4th and goal he hit Brian Blades for the tying TD. Blades did some stupid early-90s celebration dance and the Kingdome crowd erupted like it was 1984 all over again. In OT John Kasay booted Seattle to only its 2nd win of the season, and Denver spiraled to a 8-8 collapse and an Xmas at home just like the pathetic Seattlites.

It was one of the only bright spots of 1992; I remember running out onto my front yard and screaming "SEAAAAAAHAWWWWWKKKKKSSSSSS!" into the night after that win. I had no idea it was the start of a lost decade for my Hawks. Ugh.

Project Mayhem

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."
-Tyler Durden

"And then, something happened. I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom."
-Narrator

At 1-5, the future looks like the "land of wind and ghosts." What can we do to bring any sort of meaning to this season? Destroy the hopes and dreams of others, that's what. Pull a Khan... activate the ol' Genesis device, and hope our opponents lack a Spock figure.

Each week is an opportunity to drag another team that much closer to our level of degraded hopelessness. Mike Singletary's first game as Niners coach? Let's send that bug-eyed bastage home 0-1. Let's get other coaches fired. Let's get other players cut. Let's make other fans weep as the feeble Seahawks ruin THEIR seasons too.

Let's salt the earth so nothing will ever grow again.

Let's be Space Monkeys.

"I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn't screw to save its species. I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted to breathe smoke."
-Narrator

The World of Suck

Last place. 1-5. I've got no pep talk for y'all right now. This is where we learn some things about this organization and its fans, because it's been six loooong years since we've been in this spot.

More after I've slept on this...

I'm DKSB, and I approve this beard.

So Yook and the rest of the Sawx force game 7 Sunday night. Whatever shall I do??

The Red Sox will be on my TV, and I'll watch the Hawks on my laptop, thanks to the magic of the internet, and the good sense of the NFL and NBC.

Speaking of that, can you EVER imagine the NFL fucking up TV coverage of a playoff game as badly as TBS/MLB did tonight? I sure can't.

I love baseball, but this is another reason the NFL is the best sports league in the universe.

GO SOX! GO HAWKS! 2-0 Sunday coming up!

UPDATE: Of course, the Chargers/Bills game is having a very similar problem today. That oughta shut my ass up, huh?

Your football team is 1-4? And you say the season is over?

Try being down 7-0 with two outs in the 7th inning, facing elimination.

THAT'S a "the season is over" moment. 1-4? In a weak division? With 11 games left? That's not "the season is over."

I know most of y'all aren't Sox fans; in fact, most of you are probably rooting for Tampa Bay. But I hope the Seahawks coaches and players watched that game, and I hope they took away this lesson: Nothing is over until WE say it's over.

Right here, I'm saying Sunday night will be a shitty one for the Tampa/St. Pete area. Not only is their baseball team going to be sent home for the winter... Their mighty Bucs are going to fall to 4-3 too.

It's also just nice to know that my favorite player, Matt Hasselbeck, was probably screaming at his TV last night just as loud as I was. :-]

Young Nastyman to Return Kicks

Why, you ask?

WHY THE FUCK NOT???

How great would it be if 30 Rock spearheaded a Seattle resurrection? Stay tuned.

(He is still #30, right?)

Good Luck in DC, Shaun

DKSB is one fan who is going to give Shaun a standing ovation when he takes the field for the Skins at Qwest on Nov. 23rd.

The greatest running back in Seahawks history, and Seattle's only NFL MVP, deserves at least one more warm welcome from the 12th Man, don't you think?

Someday SA will be in the Ring of Honor, but for now I wish him luck in DC (but not on 11/23, of course)...

Seahawks Fundamentalists... UNITE!

I'm not religious. At age 8, I started refusing to go to church because I became entranced by the rich pageant of the National Football League. I got older, and just realized that religion wasn't for me (as a born skeptic, I don't buy atheism either.. so I became militantly agnostic).

But I am not without faith in my life. It took faith to be a Red Sox fan from 1986-2003 (don't ever forget that Red Sox Nation was desolate as the heart of a Cubs fan just 4 short years ago), and it took faith to keep watching the Seahawks through the dark times of the 1990s.

On a rational level, this Seahawks team looks done. Defeated. Spent. They look like Balboa in the first act of Rocky III. At Seahawks Addicts, they're calling this the end of an era. At Field Gulls, there are brilliant breakdowns of how massively this team is fucking up. My intellect says that they are probably 100% right.

But my lizard brain says FUCK THAT! There's no way that this team got THIS bad over night. They have to have something left. They must have some reserve of pride, skill and rage left, buried under these layers of complacency and ineptitude. They CAN'T give up dominion over the NFC West this easily, can they?

Eleven games left. Seattle needs to go 8-3 the rest of the way, including a sweep of Arizona, to win this division (don't tell me that AZ will go better than 5-3 through the rest of their sked)... It can be done!

By the way, the next person who says they'd rather get a higher draft pick than "just" go 9-7 and win the division again is going to get a brutal cockpunching from yours truly.

Yeah, we're underdogs next Sunday Night, and you'll read stuff all week about how much we suck and how big of a shame it is that Flex Scheduling can't start early this year. It will be portrayed as an utterly hopeless trip to Tampa.

Hmm.. Looks like we are 4-0 all time at Tampa Bay. 5-0 sounds pretty good to me. How about y'all?

Who the fuck is with me???

Smells like a litter box down here

So here we are, in the NFC West's dank, smelly unfurnished basement, rooming with our old pals Josh Brown and STL. Today's loss falls squarely on the defense.. You can't really fault a 3rd string QB for fucking up a frantic comeback effort the way Frye did.

I'm not giving up until mathematical elimination day, but one starts to wonder if this team simply isn't very good. I hope this notion is dispelled next week. I can deal with rooting for a team that tries hard and fails... Right now, it looks like these guys have just stopped giving a goat's fucking ass about winning games.

This goddamn team better stop being all emo about this season and start punching mother fuckers in the neck.

Fuck! Come on, you assholes! Get pisssssed!

Are you hungry for Frye'd cheese?

Unfortunately Hass looks to be out on Sunday. This sucks balls.

However, I'm looking around the blogosphere, and seeing a lot of stinkin' thinkin'... I hope these morose mother fuckers aren't going to Qwest on Sunday, because they'll probably be useless, or worse, start booing at the first sign of trouble.

These goddamn chickenshits running around saying "season's over" or "1-4, here we come" need to hop off the bandwagon and stay there. Fuck you. I lived through the Behring years, and I'm not going to let four games make me abandon this team.

Remember that bit in Apollo 13, where the one dude gets all negative nelly and Ed Harris gives him this verbal smackdown:

"With all due respect, sir, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour."

The defense is going to step up. Julius Jones is going to grind it out, Frye will avoid turnovers and the Seahawks are going to fucking win.

As fans, you can choose to be Ed Harris, or NASA Bureaucrat Douche. I choose to be Ed Harris. Who are you?



UPDATE: I want to make a couple of things CRYSTAL clear...

1. I will not give up on this season until the team is mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. We're a long way from that, particularly in the NFC West.

2. If you root for the Seahawks to lose games in order to get a higher draft pick, you are committing Fan Treason, pure and simple. In the free agency/salary cap era high draft picks are not as valuable as they used to be, so there's not much point in hoping your team goes 3-13. I'd rather see my team show some heart and win some fucking games.. That way you aren't so hopeless that free agents sprint away from you in the offseason (not to mention shit teams need to over pay for FAs).

3. If you'd rather the Hawks go 2-14 and get the #1 pick than go 9-7, win a wild card playoff game and lose in the divisional playoffs.... You are a fucking moron. Two out of the last three years a #5 or #6 seed has won the Super Bowl, shit-for brains! If the Hawks got hot at the right time, it could be them, even if they just sneak into the playoffs out of the weak NFC West.

The 10 Most Humiliating Defeats in Seahawks History

First of all, last week's game won't be on this list. There's plenty of embarassing moments in our franchise's history, and our 44-6 drubbing last Sunday can't be seen in context quite yet. So here's the 10 most degrading, disgusting losses in Seahawks history. These are the losses that made you want to put away your Hawks gear until the next gameday... The ones that made you dread running into opposing fans at work or school the next day. Here we go.. Ugh.

10. October 4, 1992: Chargers 17, Seahawks 6
9. October 11, 1992: Cowboys 27, Seahawks 0
8. October 18, 1992: Raiders 19, Seahawks 0

I'll bunch these three games together to kick-off the list. This was the nadir of the lost 1992 campaign: Six points scored over three games & ZERO touchdowns.

7. October 7, 2007: Steelers 21, Seahawks 0

Revenge for XL? Not so much. Instead, the Hawks turned in a flaccid, zombified performance in a 10 am road game... Where have we seen that before?

6. December 23, 1989: Redskins 29, Seahawks 0

I was there for Steve Largent's last game. I cried profusely. It didn't help that Largent only notched three catches while his teammates sent him into retirement with an absolutely shameful effort.

5. November 27, 1980: Cowboys 51, Seahawks 7

This was the most torturous afternoon of the sad 1980 season. While Americans enjoyed their Thanksgiving turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, the Cowboys feasted on roasted Osprey. This is still the biggest single-game margin of defeat in Seahawks history.

4. September 3, 2000: Dolphins 23, Seahawks 0

The Seahawks opened the 2000 season in Miami, and aimed for payback after losing to the fins in the '99 Wild Card game. I was aiming to familiarize my new girlfriend (and eventual wife) with my weekly ritual of watching the Hawks. We went to a sports bar, and watched Seattle fall behind 23-0 by the half... Amy immediately wondered why I spent three hours each fall sunday watching such losers. Here's Kitna's line for the afternoon:

6-13, 54 yards, 0 TD, 4 INT

3. August 31, 1997: Jets 41, Seahawks 3

The first game of the Paul Allen era! My first game as a Seahawks season ticket holder! It didn't go well. At some point in the 3rd quarter, I said this:

"What a day. First Princess Di gets killed, then so do the Seahawks!"

2. November 30, 1987: Raiders 37, Seahawks 14

The Bo Jackson MNF game. The less said about it, the better. They just beat the christ out of us, and on national TV no less.

1. November 4, 1979: Rams 24, Seahawks 0

Even though I was only 4 when this game happened, it has to top the list. Why? That day the Seahawks turned in the worst offensive performance in NFL history. Sure, they got shut out... but they also racked up -7 total yards.

Negative seven yards.

That's seven yards less than my toddler ass racked up that day.

78-16

That's the aggregate score of our two road games this season.

A fucking travesty.

I'm not one of these guys who bemoans the "lazy pro athlete." NFL players are very handsomely compensated, but each week they risk serious injury, permanent disability and even death. On top of that, they have zero job security and even a brief NFL career results in a significantly diminished life expectancy.

But when it comes to the Seattle defense, I have to quote Heath Ledger's Joker...

"I mean, what happened? Did your - did your balls drop off? Hmm?"

There were moments during today's game where I almost thought they changed the rules of the sport and didn't bother to tell the Seahawks. I don't put this on the coaches, and I'm not going to make excuses about jet lag or any other bullshit. Those 11+ guys on defense played like gaggle of fancy lads having a slap-fight during recess at the boarding school.

I've got a dish. I watch a metric fuckload of NFL ball. You know what I've learned? As complex as the pro game is, defense is still mostly about naked animal aggression.

I HATE saying this, but it's obvious to me that the defense has gotten lazy about relying on the 12th Man to provide them with a jolt of adrenaline. I fully expect them to go buck wild on Aaron Rodgers and the Pack next Sunday, and I also expect us to win the game.

But two weeks from now in Tampa, will they bring that level of intensity & focus? Or will they stumble around the field like a bunch of goth kids forced to play football as some sort of twisted punishment?

I love you Hawks, but I am calling you out. Are you this:



or this:



It's time to redeem yourself, Hawks. Stop embarrassing us and start putting foot to ass.

Gutless.

That was one of the WORST losses in Seahawks history (I'll put it in greater perpective later this week). I'm ashamed of them today. The only player who showed any fucking heart was Hasselbeck. That dude is a warrior.

Two road blowouts in four games. This team really seems to have regressed this year, and I don't have any answers.

I'm disgusted, but I'm not hopeless. We have time to figure this out, but it's gotta start with a win over Team Cheese next week.

More to come... FUCK!

We interrupt this Seahawks blog to say... Woo! Red Soxxxxx! Fuck YEEEEAH!

We wrap a trip to the ALCS Sunday night, after the Seahawks conquer the NYG... It'll be a rough day for this doucher, huh?

Uniform Nerdage

If I was ever put on trial for excessive geekery, you'd have thousands of pieces of evidence to use against me. Here's exhibit 1,467 for the prosecution: My obsession with the minutiae of sports uniforms. I found kindred spirits in the folks over at Uni Watch, even though they pretty much despise the Seahawks' current uniforms (booo!). So buckle in... this post is going to get nerdy as fuuuuuuck.

-Based on the following picture, I can immediately tell you that it was taken at a game that was NOT played at Qwest Field. Why? Because in their 32 years of existence, the Seahawks have NEVER worn white jerseys at home. After Oakland wore white last week at home v. SD, the Hawks are the ONLY NFL team that has never worn white jerseys at home. I vote we keep it that way, personally.

-Pet peeve: Jim Zorn throwback jerseys. Am I mad that he's coaching another team now? Perhaps. But look at what people are shelling out $125 a pop for:



You know how many games Zorn started in his career wearing that jersey? Eight. He wore THIS the other 92 times he started for the Hawks:



Yup, the old 76-82 striped sleeves. I'm all about being old school, but how about being accurate when you do it? Sure, he wore the 83-01 uni a few times, but it's not representative of his career at all.

-Speaking of the old uniforms... Since the NFL is so keen on teams wearing throwback unis on Thanksgiving, does anyone know if we are planning to go retro in Dallas this year? I'd love to awaken the echoes of our visit in '86 (for all you young'ns out there, the Hawks walloped the 'Boys 31-14 on thanksgiving that year).

-Personally I love the all-blue home unis, but am not very fond of any of the other various combinations (The last time we wore white pants with blue jerseys was the 2005 opener at Jacksonville, and I'm pretty sure the last time we went with blue pants/white jerseys was at Minnesota in 2003, but I could be wrong). What do y'all think?

"What one man can do, another can do!"

Guess what? FIVE teams beat the Giants at the meadowlands last season. Why not us? Why not now?

On Sunday, we're gonna kill the mutha fuckas... Just like Sir Anthony Hopkins says.

October: Great for my Red Sox, Decent for U2, BADDDD for the Seahawks

If the Seahawks are going to reach their first 2008 goal of an NFC West title, they first have to improve their performance in the month of October. Anyone want to guess what Seattle's October record is during the Holmgren era?







No cheating, now....

Ok...

13-20.

Yup. 13-20... Just about a 6-10 season. Positively Cardinal-esque, huh? For the "non-October" portions of the regular season since '99, the Hawks are 61-37 69-42, working out to about a 10-6 record over a "full season".

Why the struggles in October? In 2008 at least, the schedule is a decent excuse:

@ NYG
GB
@ TB
@ SF

Ouch. That's rough. Not the best draw if you're looking to break a tendency.

To have a realistic shot at postseason, the Hawks need to at least split these games. They'd then be 3-4 going into a HUGE showdown with the Eagles at Qwest on Nov. 2.... That one's tough, but winnable.

Show us something new, Hawks. Win a game on the east coast you aren't expected to win. Here's a good U2 song to inspire you:

Have you seen this man (on tv)?

That's me with the mind-blowingly awesome Kangaroo TV device after our 2007 win over the Bengals... An anonymous tipster thinks he saw me on TV:

Did you know they showed a clip of you in a Fox Sports commercial last night? I think it was during the "Mack Strong, In His Own Words" program. You're famous! ...this was definetelely DKSB at Qwest Field. You were using one of those little TVs you can rent at the stadium.

If this is fo' realsies, I'd love to see the ad. Has anyone else seen it? If so, does anyone have the necessary means to put it up on the youtubes?