Waking up, Waking up from shutdown

The 2016 NFL season kicks off tonight, and this will be my 20th season as a Seahawks season ticket holder. It's not coincidental that I got season tickets when Paul Allen bought the team. After years of neglect and sabotage from Californian Carpetbagger Ken Behring, Allen was desperate to rebuild a Seahawks fan base that had atrophied through the Forgotten Years of the 1990s. It got so bad that TV blackouts became commonplace (I remember driving outside the blackout zone to be able to watch games WAY too often), and the rare sellouts would happen when a team with a large national fan base rolled into the Kingdome.

Once Referendum 48 passed and Allen took over the franchise, he made a few sections of seats in the south end zone's upper deck rediculously cheap: $10. $200 for a pair of season tickets. I had just graduated from Western that spring, and in celebration of R-48's passage I snapped up a pair of seats in the VERY TOP ROW of the Dome's upper deck. I was staying in Bellingham to get my M.A. in Political Science (mainly because I never really wanted to leave).

I went to games there for only two full seasons. Despite starting off with one of the most humilating losses in franchise history, it wasn't that bad rooting on the Hawks from that perch. I could stand up the whole game if I wanted. There was a little area behind the seats where we could put all our stuff. You could make extra noise by banging on the metal panel behind my seats. OK, it sorta sucks, but I made the best of it. Of course, since we are talking about the tail end of the Dennis Erickson era, I got to see two fustrating 8-8 seasons. Warren Moon, Joey Galloway, Ricky Watters, Chad Brown, and others provided some highlights, but it was a familiar story for the Seahawks: Mediocrity as grey as the paint in our end zones. The arrival of Mike Holmgren in 1999 brought the first playoff home game in 15 years, but it was all too fitting that the Dome's last game was a bowel-churning playoff loss (to a Miami side that would lose by 55 POINTS the following week in the divisonal round).

Then we had two seasons of watching our team flail about in sideways needle rain at Husky Stadium. I had already moved to Columbus for more graduate school (No more degrees to get at Western, sadly), but I would schedule trips home around Seahawks home games as frequently as possible. That's how it's been now for 17 years.

Seahawks Stadium opened in 2002, and that means we've played 14 seasons in the loudest, most beautiful venue in the NFL. In that time, I've seen us go to the playoffs 10 times. I've personally been in the house for 5 playoff wins, including three NFC Championship Game victories. I've watched the franchise completely transform from one seemingly encased in 8-8 amber into FUCKING RAPTOR SQUAD.

Seattle enters the 2016 season with few glaring weaknesses (What happens if Russell Wilson goes down? Will the offensive line adequately protect him? Will they open up running lanes for Thomas Rawls? Will he still be able to dart through them after last December's injury?), and a lethal combination of youth, talent, experience and THIRST for another championship. Ask any Seahawk player, coach, or fan - One shitty half in Charlotte is the only reason last season didn't end in Santa Clara. Even after falling behind 31-0, our imdominable Hawks damn near won anyway. Why all the optimism?

Russell Wilson and Doug Baldwin forged some sort of football nerd mind-meld and torched the whole league in the 2nd half of last season. RW3 removed any doubt that he is a true franchise quarterback - One of the top 5 signal callers in the game (I don't care what those bobblehead haters in the football press say). The WolfBadger has an obscene number of dangerous weapons - Beyond Angry Doug, there's also Flash Lockett, Big Game Jermaine, and weirdly half-forgotten Jimmy Graham.

Even with the retirement of Marshawn Lynch, the Hawks should still be able to bludgeon the enemy via the running game with Rawls and whichever combination of promising rookies and Christine Michaels claws their way onto the 53-man roster. On defense, the original Legion of Boom has been reunited with the return of Brandon Browner, and it's absolutely likely that Seattle will have Top 5 units on offense, defense and special teams. Seattle's #1 ranking by Football Outsiders going into this season is completely deserved, and I'm calling it now: Next January the Hawks will defeat Pittsburgh to win Super Bowl LI.

I've been thinking a lot about the 49ers of the early 1980s lately. Not just because of their historical run of success, but because Bill Walsh so greatly influenced Pete Carroll. A young Niners team won a Super Bowl ahead of schedule in January 1982, followed by the weirdness of the strike-shortened 1982 season and a narrow loss in the 1983 NFC Championship game to D.C.

In 1984 they achieved an almost unprecedented level of dominance, going 15-1 with the #2 offense and #1 defense in the league. They capped that campaign by flattening Miami in XIX, but their run was far from over, and they'd win a total of four championships over a nine-year stretch. These Seahawks have similar potential.

I plan to share another magical season with all y'all here and over on my twitter feed. The hiatus is over. The Seahawks mean everything to me - But they mean the most when I am connected to my fellow Twelves. Expect much more content in this space over the next few months. Fell free to hit me with questions in the comments and GO HAWKS!!!

12 For Life/Columbus Til I Die

This Saturday, the Seattle Sounders will visit Ohio to battle Columbus Crew SC. I'm sure the vast majority of my readers will be rooting for the Rave Green. I'll be at the match, clad in Black and Gold (I know... Steelers colors! Horror!) and pulling for the Crew. Every year, when this match approaches, I get bombarded with variations on a single question: Why aren't you a Sounders supporter? I aim to answer that here, as well as dig a bit into the psychology of how fandom grows, puts down roots, and sometimes even dies. 

I've written extensively about the roots of my Seahawks fandom before. The short version? I grew up in Eastern Washington, which was a hotbed of Twelvedom in the early 80s. I was a weird, bookish, sensitive kid, so when I expressed an interest in something "normal" like football, my family aggressively cultivated it. The magical 1983 season, which included my first trip to a Seahawks game at the Kingdome, hooked me for good. Watching the Hawks became a family activity in my house, and a lifelong attachment was born. 

That attachment survived The Forgotten Years of the 1990s for a complex melange of reasons. Even though the Seahawks veered between being god awful and merely mediocre, they were one of the few positive things I shared with my estranged father. From 1993 to 1999, I was in Bellingham getting my B.A. and then my M.A. at Western. I had such a blast during those years that a pile of Seahawks losses taller than Sehome Hill didn't sting quite as much as it would have otherwise. I also was then, as I am now, a contrarian at heart. As everyone around me donned Ken Griffey Jr. and Shawn Kemp jerseys in the mid-90s, I defiantly strode around campus in my Joey Galloway jersey, feeling like the only Twelve in Bellingham. I threw myself into the campaign to get funding for Seahawks Stadium approved, and when new owner Paul Allen started selling $10 tickets, I snapped up a pair of Season Tickets in the top row of the Kingdome South End Zone for $200 (tickets which I still have today, thanks to parental subsidies... though now they are $50 apiece/$1000 for the pair). 

In 1999 I moved to Columbus for graduate school, and my Seahawks fandom became even more central to my identity. I was the first and only Twelve most Ohioans had ever met, and even though I'd have some awkward moments, I LOVED being an ambassador for the 12 Army in the Wilderness of Central Ohio. It made me feel special, but more importantly, as the years passed and my roots in Columbus deepened, 12ing represented the cultivation and renewal of my connection to my home state of Washington. Every time I would come home and go to a game, and join 66,000 other Twelves in collective hysteria, I felt reborn. After drifting away from shore, it was like the tide created by that massive Blue Wave brought me home. 

But Columbus IS home for me now. I fought that idea for a long time, but since I met my partner and started my transition a few years ago here in the Arch City, I've accepted that barring some crazy unforeseen circumstance, I'm not going to move back to Washington State (though... Damn... I really miss Bellingham). Columbus is actually a pretty spectacular place to live. It's got a high quality of life, a relatively low cost of living, and it's one of the most LGBT-friendly cities in the Midwest. As I dug myself a happy little rut in Ohio's Capital, I realized that I needed sports teams to root for. 

The Buckeyes? Umm... No. Not only did I not particularly like college football, but I found the culture surrounding Ohio State Football to be both oppressive and a bit frightening. That left the NHL's Blue Jackets and Major League Soccer's Columbus Crew. I embraced the Jackets first, because I grew up rooting for the Tri-City Americans of the Western Hockey League, and I didn't have an existing NHL allegiance to betray (Nope, I never became a Canucks fan back in the old days). My support for the Crew came later, and only after a long evolution of my feelings about soccer as a sport. 20 years ago, I though soccer was a boring, foreign waste of time (Halfback passes back to center... Center holds it... holds it... HOLDS IT!). 

Gradually, I started paying more attention to the World Cup every four years, and I'd catch the occasional Crew match (usually on Buck-a-Brat nights). In 2011, I went to my first Crew match in years with my partner and we had a rollicking good time. My deepening commitment to Columbus, combined with my rising interest in the world's most popular sport, as well as a shared experience with the woman I loved, ignited and fueled my Crew fandom. The Sounders? Bad timing, guys. Y'all didn't join MLS until 2008- Years after I moved away, but before soccer became my 2nd favorite sport after football. Plus, it irks me to no end when you call 40,000 people in a stadium that holds 67,000 a "sellout." The team I root for that plays in that stadium has sold EVERY seat in the place for EVERY game since September of 2003. Yeah, I respect Sounders supporters- Seattle fans are pretty consistently RABID when given any sort of Championship hopes- But you guys are always forgetting that Columbus is the capital of American soccer. I know a TON of Sounders supporters, so this Saturday's match is a particularly big deal to me. 

My Seahawks fandom is evergreen, but the Crew and Jackets serve two really important needs for me: They scratch my sports-fanaticism itch when the Hawks aren't playing, and they give me something that connects me to my new home without forcing me to root for Ohio State. I've explained how my sports fandom has grown and evolved... But how does it die? And why? 

From 1986 to 2014, I was a huge Boston Red Sox fan. I even wrote a piece about my Sox fandom a few years back for Field Gulls. I was devastated by Bill Buckner's gaffe and Aaron Boone's homer, and elated by hard-won championships in 2004, 2007 and 2013. Today, my allegiance to the Red Sox is on indefinite hiatus. Why? One reason is my waning interest in baseball as a sport. Rooting for the Crew only demands two hours of my time a week. The Seahawks? 3 or 4. A baseball team? 3-4 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. Just thinking about that has become exhausting for me. 

The bigger reason? I find the idea of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a LOT of the same people who celebrated one of the most painful moments of my life NAUSEATING. I just can't stomach stuff like Tom Brady throwing out the first pitch at Fenway Park right now... And I'm not sure if or when I'll feel good about rooting for a team from Boston again. I have deep emotional connections to the Pacific Northwest and Central Ohio that fuel my fire for those teams. For Boston teams? None of that for a city I've only visited twice in my life (though Massachusetts' Capital is indeed a lovely place to visit). 

So fandom can die. Could anything kill my Seahawks fandom? If they ever moved away from Seattle, that would do it (Sidebar: If Ken Behring had succeeded in moving the team to L.A. in the mid-90s, I was all set to become a fan of the... Ugh... New England Patriots. I loved Drew Bledsoe, and I was already a Red Sox fan, so it made sense at the time). A long stretch of subpar play couldn't do the trick... What if the Seahawks started employing a gaggle of reprobates? I have to admit I find our drafting of Frank Clark distasteful (I'm not going to run out and buy the jersey of a suspected domestic abuser, that's for sure), but it's not nearly enough to eat away at my bond to the franchise. At the moment, I'm just hoping that John Schneider is right about him, and that he stays out of trouble from this point on. 

What about everyone else? Do you just root for Seattle-area teams (or, all the local teams from where-ever you are)? If you don't, how did you get attached to teams you aren't geographically connected to? Let's hash it out in the comments! 

(Almost forgot... GLORY TO COLUMBUS!)

The Seahawks All-Time/All-Drafted Team (2015)

I'll be blunt and admit that I know next to nothing about who the Seahawks should draft next week. If you're itching for actual knowledge and insight about that, you should amble over to Seahawks Draft Blog for a bit before coming back over here... I don't really pay any significant attention to college football, and my preferences have been proven dead wrong WAY too many times in the past for me to trust my own prospective judgments about the NFL draft. I've been ecstatic about us drafting duds like Aaron Curry, a bit puzzled by picks like Russell Wilson, and disappointed by our selection of future Hall-of-Famers like Earl Thomas. Like the Sea Captain on The Simpsons, sometimes I am just left muttering "Yarr... I don't know what I'm doing." 

Thankfully, judging the performance of our front office in the draft retrospectively is much easier. A few years back I posted an "All-Time/All-Drafted" Seahawks team. Six years later, a reboot is LONG past due... First, the rules: 

A) players must have been drafted by the Seahawks (no undrafted players like Doug Baldwin or Dave Krieg)

B) players must have made a significant contribution with Seattle (no Ahman Greens, for example).

OFFENSE

Quarterback: Russell Wilson

You know who was the best quarterback drafted by the Seahawks before 2012? Seneca Wallace. Jim Zorn, Dave Krieg and Matt Hasselbeck were all acquired via means other than the draft. Yes, Wilson has only been the league for 3 years, but he's already not just the best quarterback the Seahawks have ever drafted- He's the best QB we've ever had, period. Easiest decision on this list. 

Running Back: Shaun Alexander; Fullback: John L. Williams

Curt Warner and Chris Warren had stellar runs in Seattle, but no other RB the Hawks have ever drafted comes close 2005 NFL MVP Alexander's resume. He's the all-time franchise leader in rushing yards and touchdowns scored and is a sure bet for a spot in the Seahawks Ring of Honor. 1986 first-round pick John L. Williams deserves a to have his name splayed across the Seahawks Stadium upper deck, too. Only Steve Largent and Brian Blades caught more passes for Seattle than the multi-talented fullback, and Williams stacked up nearly 8700 total yards from scrimmage as the Ground Chuck Era bled into The Forgotten Years. 

Wide Receivers: Brian Blades and Darrell Jackson

While it was tempting to try to slip Joey Galloway or Golden Tate into one of these slots, Blades and Jackson hold the #2 and #3 spots on the franchise's all-time receiving leaderboard. For all the grief D-Jack got over his bouts of the dropsies, only Largent has caught more TDs for Seattle than Jackson. He's still probably the best player in franchise history to never play in a Pro Bowl.  

Offensive Line: Walter Jones, Steve Hutchinson, Max Unger, J.R. Sweezy, Russell Okung

Jones and Hutchinson are the only offensive linemen in Seahawks history to be named All-Pro multiple times, so they were the easy picks here for one side of the line. I give Unger the nod over Kevin Mawai because the vast majority (and all of the Pro Bowls) of Mawai's storied career happened after he left Seattle. Sweezy gets the guard spot across from Hutch over Pete Kendall, and I cheated a little bit by sliding Okung over to right tackle opposite Big Walt. 

Tight End: John Carlson

How bad were the Seahawks back in 2008 and 2009? Carlson was the team MVP both seasons. When you look at how slim the pickings were at tight end through our team's history, current Cardinal Carlson is still the obvious choice. 

DEFENSE
Defensive line: Jacob Green, Cortez Kennedy, Brandon Mebane, Michael Sinclair
Cantonite Tez anchors this formidable theoretical d-line, and end rushers Green and Sinclair combined for a whopping 171 sacks wearing blue and green. Bane gets the other tackle spot, nudging aside Red Bryant and Rocky Bernard.

Linebackers: Bobby Wagner, Lofa Tatupu, K.J. Wright 
Wags and Wright are the cornerstones of the current Seattle linebacking corps, while Tatupu anchored the middle of Seahawks' defense through the playoff runs of the late-Holmgren era.

Defensive Backs: Richard Sherman, Kenny Easley, Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor
Yes, I know I have three safeties and just one corner here. But would you rather have Shawn Springs/Marcus Trufant on the field over ANY one of Easley/ET/Bam-Bam Kam? Let them murder the enemy WRs and Sherm can cover whomever happens to survive.

SPECIALISTS
The Traitor Josh Brown is still the best placekicker the Seahawks have ever drafted, and Ruben Rodriguez gets punting duties basically by default. Charlie Rogers and Bobbie Joe Edmonds were the most versatile/effective kick/punt returners Seattle's ever seen, and Fredd Young had absolute murder in his heart covering kicks for the Hawks in the mid-80s.

What do you think, sirs? Any glaring omissions? Let's hash it out in the comments!

The Seattle Cheese Grating Company: A Complete History

Up until a couple of years ago, it was difficult for me to lather up a good hatred of the Green Bay Packers. They've traditionally been a classy organization, they have heaps of (relatively inoffensive) tradition, tons of ties to the Seahawks organization, and they're the only publicly-owned NFL team (Shit- that should make a filthy lib-rul like me LOVE them). Aaron Rodgers is one of my favorite non-Seahawks, and they've been a very entertaining team to watch over the last few years. Back in 1996, when it looked like the Seahawks might bolt for Los Angeles, I strongly considered the Packers to become my new NFL obsession. Unless you root for a rival NFC North team, the Pack was hard to loathe. 

Until, well... you know... That one play. After Golden Tate's game-winning score on Monday Night Football back in 2012, a raging torrent of whinging burst forth from Wisconsin. Gee, you would have thought that the Packers just got screwed out of winning a Super Bowl, instead of losing a game in WEEK 3 on a controversial call. The stench of entitlement coming from Green Bay and all of their fans was nauseating as well... But we'll get back to that play (and that game) later. 

For a LONG time, Brett Favre alone gave us all plenty of reason to root against Green Bay. Mr. Wrangler Jeans dashed Seattle's Super Bowl dreams TWICE in playoff losses at Lambeau Field. In 2003, it was that heart-breaking OT "We want the ball and we're going to score" Wild Card defeat. In 2007, it was a soul-destroying divisional round blowout loss (after we jumped out to a 14-0 early lead). The Seahawks have only won 7 of their 17 previous meetings with the Pack, but this Sunday's NFC Championship Game is BY FAR the most important game these two franchises will ever play against each other. My prediction? A 27-19 Seahawks win that isn't as close as that score would indicate. But I'm getting ahead of myself... Here's our previous 7 wins over Green Bay, ranked: 

7. 11/15/87 Seahawks 24, Packers 13 

How did the Seahawks win a game where Dave Krieg put up a 41.6 QB rating and they turned the ball over 5 times? They ran for 193 yards, including 123 yards and a TD from Curt Warner. Seattle's defense recovered three fumbles and picked off Packers QBs twice, helping the Hawks improve to 6-3. Side note for any Packers fans reading this: Who the fuck was Randy Wright? He was your QB that day, but that sounds like the name of some forgotten 80s R&B singer. 

6. 10/21/84 Seahawks 30 @ Packers 24 

The Packers used to play a couple games a year down in Milwaukee, and those were usually the dates on the schedule against less "attractive" opponents. Before they stopped the Green Bay/Milwaukee split after the 1994 season, the Seahawks would face the Packers four times in Milwaukee and only once at Lambeau. Evidently our team from South Alaska wasn't worthy of prime dates up in Green Bay?

Anyway, in 1984 the Seahawks rolled into Alice Cooper's favorite town 5-2 and expecting an easy win over the 1-6 Packers. Lynn Dickey and James Lofton made the Hawks work for this victory, though. Dickey torched Seattle's usually dominant 1984 defense for 364 yards and three TDs, and future Hall-of-Famer Lofton had 5 grabs for 162 yards. After one quarter, Seattle trailed 17-7, and they were well on their way to a surprising defeat (Seattle also committed 17 penalties that cost 128 yards of field position. Damn!). Thankfully Krieg and Largent almost matched Dickey & Lofton- Mudbone racked up 310 passing yards, and Largent hauled in 7 catches for 129 yards and a TD. The defense would also sack Dickey 6 times and pick off three of his passes, helping Seattle get out of town with a 6-point victory. 

5. 12/9/90 Seahawks 20 @ Packers 14

I actually still have the videotape of this one- what I remember is Derrick Fenner just going OFF on the Pack, and thankfully my memory didn't fail me this time. Both teams came in at 6-6, so this was effectively an elimination game for the losers. Despite facing a Packers team led by Anthony Dilweg at QB (wait-who?), Seattle was a significant underdog- A dome team wasn't going to win an outdoor December game with temps down in the 20s, right? 

The Hawks had a nice little streak of good luck going at this point- They had won three of their last four games. One was the miraculous "Kreig-to Skansi" win at Arrowhead, and the other two were consecutive 13-10 OT wins over Houston and San Diego. On that chilly Milwaukee day it certainly helped us that Dilweg played down to his awful-sounding name- The dude went 6 for 22 for 69 yards and a pick before he was replaced by Blair Kiel (Man- they really had a dry spell at QB between Dickey and Don Majkowski, huh?). Kiel was a HUGE improvement, but by then Seattle had built a 20-0 lead primarily on the legs of Fenner, who toted the ball 20 times for 112 yards and a TD. Kiel would throw two 4th-quarter touchdowns to make all us Twelves sweat, but the Hawks hung on to win 20-14. 

4. 11/1/99 Seahawks 27 @ Packers 7 

It was Monday Night Football, and the return of Mike Holmgren to Lambeau Field as Seattle's Head Coach. I remember pacing back and forth in my pathetic graduate dorm room at Ohio State, sweating and on the verge of puking before this one. Very few outside of the Twelve Army gave us any chance of victory, and it looked like Green Bay would snatch the early lead until Shawn Springs scooped and scored on a blocked field goal attempt. In my Springs jersey I ran out in the hallway braying like an ass, frightening the foreign students on my floor who had no fucking clue what a Seahawk was.  

Favre would answer with a long TD pass to tie the game, but Cortez Kennedy sacked Favre thrice and Springs snatched two of Seattle's four interceptions. Ricky Watters gashed GB for 125 yards on 31 carries and sent the Pack into a downward spiral that led to 8-8 and Ray Rhodes getting canned after just one year as Head Coach. 

Seattle rode this upset win over the Packers on MNF to a winning season and a playoff appearance (Well, there was that horrific collapse over the season's last six weeks, but still...). 

3. 11/27/06 Seahawks 34, Packers 24

A SNOW GAME IN SEATTLE! This one was a great example of why Seahawks Stadium was a HUGE upgrade over the Kingdome- As loud as the Dome could get, it could never provide us with a memory quite like this one: Shaun Alexander shredding the Green Bay defense inside a snow globe. 

Hasselbeck and Favre cancelled each other out, both chucking three interceptions- But the Pack had no answer for Alexander, who delivered one of the last great performance of his career (we tend to forget the great games he had in our losses to San Diego and Chicago later that season). SA rambled for 201 yards on 40 (!) carries, but Seattle still found itself trailing a 4-6 team at home 21-12 in the 2nd half. Hasselbeck would finish strong with three late TD passes and the Hawks would end an unforgettable night with a 34-24 win. 

2. 9/4/14 Seahawks 36, Packers 16

This game feels like it happened four YEARS ago, not four short months ago. Percy Harvin (Who?) had 100 total yards, Russell Wilson fired two TD passes, and Marshawn Lynch added two more scores and 110 yards as Seattle opened up their title defense in style. 

1. 9/24/12 Seahawks 14, Packers 12

Let's cut the shit: It was a catch. The short version? Tate established possession and had two feet down in the end zone before Jennings got his mitts on the ball and got HIS feet on the ground. Touchdown, Seahawks! That one play aside, this was still a great win for the Seahawks on the national stage of Monday Night Football. As I wrote back then: 

The focus on officiating going full-on Chernobyl obscures a huge plotline of last night's game: The emergence of a Super-Bowl quality defense in Seattle. The eight first-half sacks jump off the stat sheet, but the Seahawks absolutely DOMINATED the reigning NFL MVP and one of the most powerful offensive attacks of all time. Aaron Rodgers could only lead Green Bay into the end zone once, and that was with a big scabby assist from a bullshit DPI on Kam Chancellor. Twelve points allowed against a team only months removed from averaging 35 ppg is more than impressive- it's a sign that we might just have the best defense in football. The defense was so comprehensively spectacular that it's hard to single out any players for individual plaudits. The moment that will stick with me is the complete smothering of Green Bay's final attempt to run out the clock (which was set up by one of about a dozen superlative Seattle special teams plays)- When we absolutely needed a stop, they got one. The Legion of Boom is starting to get a 2000 Ravens/2002 Bucs vibe going, and that should soil pantaloons all over the league.

What do you think, sirs? Did I miss anything? 

Top 10: Seahawks Beat Cardinals!

The Hawks have played the nomadic Cardinals 30 times over the years, but none of those match-ups were as important as this upcoming Sunday's "Last Stand" at Seahawks Stadium. A win would keep Seattle alive in both the NFC West and Wild Card races, while a loss would erase any hope of a divisional title and push the Hawks to the brink of playoff elimination. Oddly, our rivalry with the Cardinals has never approached the intensity of our battles with the Rams in the mid-00s or our current blood feud with Santa Clara. That's partially due to circumstance: We've rarely been good at the same time. On top of that, the games themselves have tended toward not being particularly memorable. Since Seattle joined the NFC West in 2002, they're 13-11 against Arizona (Before that? 1-5 against STL/Phoenix/Arizona). Here's the ten most noteworthy/memorable Seattle wins over the Cardinals. Enjoy! 

10. 9/14/03 Seahawks 38 @ Cardinals 0

The 98-degree heat at Sun Devil Stadium didn't seem to faze the Seahawks, as they ran out to a 24-0 half-time lead and cruised to an easy shut out win. Darrell Jackson only caught 3 passes, but they accounted for 133 yards and 2 TDs. The defense forced six turnovers and scored on a Randall Godfrey fumble return. This would be Seattle's last road win of 2003 until the season finale at Candlestick Park (The Hawks went 8-0 at home and 2-7 on the road in '03, including the playoffs).

9. 9/13/98: Seahawks 33, Cardinals 14

This was our first ever win over the Cards, after five losses from 1976-1995. Shawn Springs and Willie Williams both took Jake Plummer INTs all the way back for scores, Ricky Watters gashed the Cards for 116 yards from scrimmage, and Michael Sinclair notched 2.5 of Seattle's 7 sacks.

Odd coda: Arizona would recover to go 9-5 down the stretch, make the playoffs, and beat NFC East (huh?) rivals Dallas in the Wild Card game. The Seahawks? Um, well... there was that Phantom Touchdown later on, but overall they went 6-8 over the remainder of 1998 and got Dennis Erickson canned.  

8. 9/25/11: Seahawks 13, Cardinals 10 

I have to confess that the only reason this one made the list was because I happened to be at the game. Otherwise it was a fairly forgettable affair, beyond the charity of a close friend: 

There was a lone hopeful event that boosted my spirits, however- Given that my only Seahawks jersey was a Matt Hasselbeck model, I needed to get a new one on my visit out to Seattle. I decided that I would take advantage of the deal being offered at the Seahawks Stadium Pro Shop: Turn in any old Seahawks jersey and get 25% off a new one. For me, that meant I'd have to part with my #8, and give up the dream that I'd wear it someday to his Ring of Honor ceremony. It was a sad thing to contemplate, but given that I'm not exactly flush with cash right now, it seemed like a necessary sacrifice. 

That was until my close friend Katie stepped in and said (as I remember it) "No way. You LOVED Hasselbeck, and I remember you defending him when I was crapping all over him- You explained to me what he meant to this team- There's no way I'm letting you trade that in." 

She offered up her own old Julius Jones jersey, and I ended up getting my SWEET new Earl Thomas jersey at a discounted price. She also reminded me that blind optimism is pretty much my best quality as a Seahawks fan- Her gesture re-energized me for Sunday's game. 

7. 10/24/10 Seahawks 22, Cardinals 10

6. 11/14/10 Seahawks 38 @ Cardinals 16

The 2010 Seahawks only won 7 games on their way to the NFC West title, and two of them were against Arizona. In the October game at Seattle, Marshawn Lynch ground out 89 yards on 24 carries, while Big Mike Williams snared 11 catches for 87 yards and the Hawks' lone touchdown. A few weeks later BMW completed his dominance of the Cards with ANOTHER 11 catches for 145 yards. Matt Hasselbeck had one of his last great games, completing 24 of 33 passes for 333 yards and a touchdown. 

5. 9/25/05: Seahawks 37, Cardinals 12

4. 11/6/05: Seahawks 33 @ Cardinals 19

In two games against Arizona in 2005, Shaun Alexander rushed for 313 yards a SIX touchdowns! Four of those scores came in the September matchup in Seattle, which was actually fairly competitive until the Hawks pulled away in the 4th. The Seahawks defense contributed 3 sacks, two takeaways, and kept the Cardinals out of the endzone for the full 60.

Rightly so, the rematch in Tempe is remembered for Shaun Alexander's 88-yard TD scamper and 173-yard, 2-TD overall performance. But it's easy to forget that for a moment it looked like the Seahawks would implode. A 27-9 lead got whittled down to 27-19 in the 4th, but thankfully the league MVP salted the victory away with another touchdown. This was the moment where Shaun Alexander became a legitimate MVP candidate in the eyes of the national football press.  

3. 12/26/04 Seahawks 24, Cardinals 21

Seattle knew that with one win over their final two games in 2004, they'd make the playoffs. Up to that point, 2004 had been an absolute nightmare for Twelves: The blown 17-point 4th quarter lead to the Rams, the MNF collapse v Dallas, and an embarrassing blowout home loss to Buffalo had scarred the Twelve Army badly. Still, they were on the verge of the playoffs, which was a very novel experience for Hawks fans still stung by The Forgotten Years.

For any other fan base, Shaun Alexander's 4th quarter TD to put Seattle up 24-7 would have been cause for celebration, but we all were waiting for the terrible rain of anvils, and it looked like we'd all get splattered into oblivion when the Cardinals pulled within three late. Frankly, Trent Dilfer had an awful day subbing for Matt Hasselbeck: 10-26 for 128 yards and an INT. But on a key 3rd down late in the 4th quarter, he somehow outraced multiple Arizona defenders to the first down marker, allowing Seattle to kneel their way to a wayyy-too-stressful victory and a playoff berth.

2. 12/9/12: Seahawks 58, Cardinals 0

The most dominant win in team history. Marshawn Lynch and Robert Turbin both topped 100 yards rushing, and Seattle racked up 284 total yards rushing. The defense not only shut out the Cardinals, they outscored them with Richard Sherman's interception return TD (one of EIGHT Seattle takeaways). As I wrote back then: 

Today's 58-0 victory over the Arizona Cardinals was less like a football game, and more like that scene in Drive where Ryan Gosling's character doesn't just disarm a mob gun thug or even merely kill him. He stomps on that fucker's head so many times that it ended up resembling a watermelon from Gallagher's act, and he's left splattered in the blood and brains of his murdered foe. THAT is what the Seahawks did to Arizona.

1. 12/9/07: Seahawks 42, Cardinals 21

Arizona came into this one needing a win to pull within one game of Seattle for the NFC West lead. The Seahawks would clinch a 4th consecutive NFC West title with a victory. They wouldn't blow the opportunity, jumping out to a 24-0 lead before cruising to an easy victory. Kurt Warner threw for 337 yards and 3 TDs, but was also picked (and sacked) 5 times. Hasselbeck tossed 4 TDs, and Marcus Trufant delivered the death blow with an 84-yard pick six in the final quarter. 

As for this Sunday? It'll occupy the top spot on the next version of this list. Seahawks 29, Cardinals 22. 

What do you think, sirs? 

Seahawks 13, Panthers 9

I've been going through a serious bout of mid-to-late 90s nostalgia lately, triggered by the glorious news of the Sleater-Kinney reunion (Unfamiliar with their body of work? Start with The Woods). I remember getting into them when I was a DJ at KUGS-FM (Fun fact: Carrie Brownstein went to Western for a quarter the year before I arrived in Bellingham. Fun fact #2: Carrie and bandmate Corin Tucker are my age, more or less. Fun fact #3: Carrie wrote an XLVIII preview for Vanity Fair. Final fun fact: I met Carrie and Corin at a S-K show in Columbus back in 2003).

As a sheltered radioactive mall rat from the Tri-Cities, I probably never would have gotten into them if I wasn't exposed to them at KUGS. I was so into them that I even used their songs as "bumpers" on my weekly political talk show, so there was a good chance at some point I went right from "Dig Me Out" into trying to convince Whatcom County to vote Yes on R48. There I'd sit, in my Joey Galloway jersey, desperately attempting to cajole my listeners to vote in favor of a new stadium for my talented but grossly underachieving Seahawks.

Throughout the Dennis Erickson era, Seattle boasted a roster littered with Pro Bowl talent, only to deliver a procession of 8-8 campaigns. One of their specialties was the "season-killing/heartbreaking 10 am road loss." In '96, it was a last-second loss in Detroit on a Todd Peterson missed field goal. In '97 it was an OT loss to an inferior New Orleans squad. In '98? It was Vinny Testaverde's Phantom Touchdown. I broke my roommate's laundry hamper when I hulked the fuck out after that one.

While I'm ecstatic to see Carrie, Corin and Janet reuniting to rock our lame asses like it's 1998, I haven't been as psyched to see our contemporary Seahawks paying homage to their "Forgotten Years" ancestors. Marshawn Lynch paid tribute to James McKnight by dropping a sure touchdown pass that then got snagged for an interception. A fumbled snap was Russell Wilson's tip of the cap to John Friesz. A flurry of dropped interceptions and unrecovered fumbles was a bad cover version of those Erickson Ds who consistently finished in the NFL's bottom third despite their raw talent. The 4th quarter double-whammy of Michael Bennett's failure to sack Cam Newton for a safety, followed by an improbable 3rd-and-long deep ball completion against double coverage was so '90s Hawks it should have come with a copy of Ricky Watters' rap album.

The Hawks trailed 9-6, in the thick of yet another Charlotte Bloodpisser. Despite outplaying the Panthers, they were on the verge of falling to 3-4, which would not only deal a devastating blow to their playoff hopes, but also pour jet fuel on the embers of discontent afflicting the team (Russell Wilson's not black enough! Marshawn's on his way out the door! Etc...). Seattle was 80 yards away from the winning touchdown with less than 4 minutes left. The men who helped steal a season-salvaging win were unknown to the gaggle of ESPN bobbleheads and assorted haters eager to bury the Seahawks. Cooper Helfet for 11 yards. Kevin Norwood for 10 more. Paul Richardson snags one to get Seattle to the edge of field goal range. Finally, The two-headed beast of WILLLSON! collaborated on the decisive score. Of course Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch were (as usual) integral to yet another late comeback win, but the contributions of so many guys filling in because of injuries and/or trades should fill the heart of every Twelve with hope.

The recently much-maligned defense was far from mistake-free, but that unit also saw newcomers make a splashy impact. Kevin Pierre-Louis hopped off the bench and recorded a handful of key tackles. Marcus Burley and Tharold Simon acquitted themselves well in the secondary, with Burley snaring a diving interception on a panicked Newton heave. As a unit, they kept the Panthers out of the end zone all day and seemed to improve throughout the game, cresting with Bruce Irvin's pair of drive-snuffing sacks on Carolina's final possession. Special Teams even largely bounced back from last week's debacle, with Steven Hauschka DRILLING a 58-yard field goal set up by a long Richardson kickoff return (Percy who?).

The WolfGreys escaped Charlotte victorious, but you'd barely know it if you listened to/watched ESPN. Their disappointment that the Hawks messed up their "SEATTLE IN TURMOIL" narrative was palpable this morning. The unpleasant truth for those rooting for the Emerald Empire to crumble? Seattle has two home games upcoming against the hopeless Raiders and merely pathetic Giants, and they will be 6-3 going into a mid-November Arrowhead showdown against the Chiefs. By then, players like Bryon Maxwell, Jeremy Lane and Zach Miller (among others) will be back on the field, but their understudies will be battle-tested. Look out, NFL.

Sleater-Kinney's comeback will peak with the release of their new album next January. I believe that our Seahawks will be peaking around that time, too.

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BONUS: Here's a kick-ass Sleater-Kinney performance on Letterman for y'all..

The Emerald Empire Rises

For a second there, I was worried.

Worried about the Seahawks losing their season-opening game against the Packers? Fuck no. Even though Green Bay jumped out to an early 7-3 lead they were as hopeless as the procession of poor schmucks Rocky Balboa pummeled during the opening montage of Rocky III. No. I was worried about becoming one of THOSE fans... Someone who lamented their team actually, FINALLY winning a Championship.

When I got to Washington State last week, I was gobsmacked by how totally my home state had reached the level of complete Seahawks Saturation. From Kennewick to Bellingham to Seattle, the Evergreen State was EVERY bit as batshit crazy about the Seahawks as Columbus is about the Ohio State Buckeyes (even more so, perhaps). My reaction to this new reality was... odd. I realized that a non-trivial portion of my Twelvedom is rooted in my pathological desire to be contrarian. Even though I bitch and moan about it, I kind of like being a "unicorn" Twelve out in Ohio. Back home, I suddenly no longer felt special. I felt... common. Yuck. It wasn't just geography, either. I was a Twelve back in The Forgotten Years. I remembered being mocked for wearing a Galloway jersey when all my friends were wearing Griffey or Kemp. I remembered TV blackouts (and driving outside the blackout zone to watch home games) and a half-full Kingdome. I remembered the team almost bolting for Los Angeles. I remembered people throwing around the moniker "Sea-Chickens" in reference to MY team, and now many of those same folks were striding about in #12 jerseys. Before last Thursday's opener, I found myself strangely deflated.

When we got to Seahawks Stadium, I felt like a doddering old lady. It was too crowded! Soundgarden and Pharrell were too loud! It was too hot! Mehhhhhhh! Who the fuck WAS I? I retreated into routine and headed down to the Seahawks tunnel like I do before every game. I was in a dark headspace. Was my Twelvedom ruined by success? I started having some truly unpleasant thoughts along those lines. What kind of a fucking douchenozzle had I become?

Then, kickoff. I roared. I bellowed. I howled. It was the exact same way I've acted at Seahawks games for 30 years. Something was different, though. It wasn't me, or the crowd. It was the guys clad in Seattle uniforms. Holy shit. There was no doubt about it: These guys were MARAUDERS. This was the best team I'd ever seen (or I ever would see). My negativity dissolved, replaced by an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Had I ever seen a player as fast as Percy Harvin? Nope. Had I seen a defense as dominant as the Legion of Boom? A Seahawks quarterback as good as Russell Wilson? A running back as ferocious as Mashawn Lynch? No, no and no. Yes, the trappings of success had knocked me off track briefly, but I was jolted into a broader perspective...

I was at the summit, and I wouldn't stay there forever. Eventually, the Seahawks will slide back into mediocrity (I know it seems impossible, but even the Sun will run out of fuel someday), and I'll still be watching and coming to the games. The increasingly ancient Seahawks Stadiuim might not even be full for every game, and the memories of these moments would degrade into something less than high definition. If I didn't savor EVERY FUCKING MOMENT of The Emerald Empire, I'd never forgive myself. I had earned this. WE had earned this. A Wilco lyric drifted into my head...

And if the whole world's singing your songs
And all of your paintings have been hung
Just remember what was yours is everyone's from now on

And that's not wrong or right
But you can struggle with it all you like
You'll only get uptight

The struggle with success HAD made me uptight. As I watched our boys systematically SLAUGHTER a popular presesason Super Bowl favorite and the best quarterback in the game, I reached irrational heights of delirious joy. This wasn't just the best Seahawks team ever. This wasn't just the best team in the NFL today. This might end up as one of the greatest teams in the history of the sport.

Is that idea THAT irrational? Someone else mentioned on Twitter that the NFL was on schedule for a new dynasty to rise. The 60s had the Packers, the 70s had the Dolphins and Steelers, the 80s had the 49ers, the 90s had the Cowboys, and last decade had the Patriots. Why not us? The last two teams to finish a season undefeated were the 1929 Packers and the 1972 Dolphins. There were 43 seasons between those unbeaten campaigns. It's been 42 years since Miami went 17-0. We're about due for an undefeated season, don't you think?

Why be uptight when your team isn't just chasing glory, but immortality? On Sunday, I flew back to Ohio, but a week touring my home state left me refreshed and newly reconnected to my Northwest roots. Oh.. And three hours of screaming last Thursday left me sounding like one of Marge Simpson's sisters too... But I flaunted my hoarse, scratchy voice as a sonic badge of honor. And from now on, I intend to relax and enjoy the wild toboggan ride 2014 is sure to be.

So we'll plan on reconvening again in January for the playoffs, Seattle?

What do you think, sirs?

Seahawks 43, Broncos 8

Back home in the Tri-Cities, my Mom has a storage shed stuffed with artifacts of my childhood. Among the VHS tapes, photo albums and junior high yearbooks are my old journals, and as an odd, lonely kid with obsessive streak I scribbled in them constantly back then. One thread running through all of them was my penchant for detailed daydreaming about the Seattle Seahawks. I'd go through the upcoming season's schedule game-by-game and plot out the trajectory that would lead us to Super Bowl glory, down to quarter-by-quarter scoring in each game and the stats for individual players. It was a rudimentary version of the piece I wrote a while back about the Tangent Universe 1986 Seahawks, and it helped distract me from my day-to-day struggles and the perennial floundering of my beloved Hawks.

In all those reams of yellowing paper, written by an adolescent Twelve with an over-active imagination, I doubt I ever penned a Super Bowl yarn that ended with the Seahawks winning 43-8. I used to wear Hawaiian shirts WITH fish ties back then, but even that little weirdo I used to be would have thought "Woah, that's just bugfuck crazy!" I've been envisioning this Championship moment for thirty years, and those daydreams betrayed my own lack of confidence. In those mental movies, the Seahawks would mightily struggle, and hoist the Lombardi Trophy only after edging their opponents in a heart-stopping XXV or XXIII-esque affair. I could allow myself to dream about us somehow getting to the top of the mountain, and taking a brief look around before we trudged back to base camp battered, bruised and exhausted. I never seriously entertained a different notion: What if, when the Seahawks finally won it all, they were one of the greatest teams of all time? What if they strutted to the top of the mountain and built a fucking mansion up there?

The 2013 Seattle Seahawks are the best NFL team the 21st century has yet seen, and one of the Top 10 teams of the Super Bowl era. They evoke comparisons to the 1984 Niners and 1992 Cowboys- Youthful teams filled with speed, blessed with brains and fueled by blind rage and an appetite for brutality. Before the revisionist history takes hold about XLVIII (Peyton is "old," the Broncos weren't that great, blah blah blah), let's remember that the Seahawks were three-point underdogs. They were facing the most terrifyingly efficient offensive machine in NFL history- A unit that scored a league-record 606 points and was led by NFL MVP Peyton Manning, who shattered every significant single-season passing benchmark in the NFL's record books. Super Bowl XLVIII was supposed to be the capstone to Manning's superlative career- A second World Championship would ensure that he'd be remembered as perhaps the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. Then... This happened...

A whole lot of THAT happened, and the Seahawks ruined King Peyton's meticulously prepared coronation with the greatest defensive performance in the history of professional football. Seattle boasted the first defense to lead the NFL in points allowed, yards allowed and takeaways since the 1985 Chicago Bears, and they showed the largest television audience in American history why they deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as those '85 Bears, the '00 Ravens, and the '02 Buccaneers. For three quarters, the Legion of Boom & Company shut out history's most explosive offense, and at the final whistle they had SINGLEHANDEDLY outscored them 9-8. They disrupted Manning's rhythm all day, forced him into three turnovers, and imposed vicious punishment upon his receivers every time they touched the ball.

Given the Championship stakes, the quality of opposition, and the level of utter domination, football has never seen a more dominant defensive performance than the one given by Seattle in XLVIII. Malcolm Smith was a deserving recipient of the MVP award, but it could have been given to a half-dozen Seahawk defenders (or the unit as a whole). 

What about that struggling, pedestrian Seattle offense? Oh, you mean the one that was 8th in the NFL in scoring this season? They put up 27 points, and Russell Wilson posted a passer rating FIFTY POINTS HIGHER than Peyton Manning's. Wilson emphatically invalidated all that "game-manager" bullplop puked onto the airwaves by the bobblehead "experts" over the last few weeks and grasped football immortality before his more heralded contemporaries (Kaepernick, Luck, RGIII, etc). The terrifying thing for the rest of the NFL is that he's still YEARS away from his prime. Get used to this, NFL: 

How total was Seattle's dominance? I hosted my first Super Bowl party in YEARS, and I was worried that a tight, stressful game would lead to... ahem... unflattering behavior on my part. My non-football watching girlfriend would be there, and I didn't want to freak her out if A) the Hawks got blown out or B) the game was competitive in the 4th quarter. In the event of the former, I usually become a sullen basket case. The latter? I typically become a nauseous, pacing, chattering, profanity-barking wreck. I'm quite the catch, huh? 

While I was stressed beyond belief BEFORE the game, after the opening kickoff it evolved into one of the most stress-free, gleeful, relaxing experiences I've ever had as a Twelve. From the moment Denver's first snap sailed over Peyton's head for a safety, it was ALL joy. I jumped into a friend's arms after Malcom Smith's pick-6. Evidently after Percy Harvin's kickoff return TD to start the second half, I was bounding about my living room like Tracy Flick in Election. XLVIII got so boring after Harvin's score that the rest of my party-goers entertained themselves by playing Cards Against Humanity for the remainder of the game (while I was enraptured, floating on Cloud 12). You might be wondering when the tears came for me- It was only when the game was over, and the "Seattle Seahawks: Super Bowl Champions" graphic popped up on the screen that I was overcome with emotion. Then, the waterworks began. 

I'm sure I'll be posting more articles about what this victory "means" in the coming days, weeks and months, but two things are really sticking in my mind today...

-All of the trauma I've ever felt as a Twelve has been magically washed away. I feel unburdened and bulletproof. None of it hurts anymore. Not The Phantom Touchdown. Not the 4th-quarter collapse against St. Louis in 2004. Not 1992. Not even XL. NOT EVEN XL!!!! I almost feel like I could go back and watch that game again now- Almost. It's similar to what I felt as I started coming out as transgender to people- Every time I did it, I felt LIGHTER. I felt freer. There's SO much we don't have to carry around any more, my fellow Twelves. On a deeply personal level, it's meaningful beyond words that the Seahawks finally won the Super Bowl only six weeks after I started living full-time as a woman. It's almost as if they were waiting to win so I could celebrate as my authentic self. In truth, one (small) reason I pushed myself to go full-time by January 2014 was because in the event the Hawks won XLVIII, I didn't want to experience it in "boy mode." Thanks for the extra motivation, guys! 

-This victory means a great deal to millions of people. It's significant to the whole population of Washington State, it's a feast for Seattle-area sports fans starving for Championship glory, and obviously ALL Twelves are delirious with ecstasy. But I want to talk about one specific brigade within the Twelve Army- Those of us who survived "The Forgotten Years" and bled and cried over this team when the Seahawks were about as uncool as a sports franchise could possibly be. 

Bear with me, and go watch this clip on YouTube. It's one of the most exciting finishes to a game in franchise history....

Wow! That was awesome, right? You know how many people were actually AT that game? 36, 320. That's it. The game was blacked out on local TV, and the only reason I saw it live was because I was in the Dome. The ascendant Sonics and Mariners ruled the Seattle sporting landscape, and our Californian owner was in the middle of a brazen attempt to relocate the Seahawks to Los Angeles. That awful reality was bad enough, but even worse was the fact that NO ONE SEEMED TO CARE if the Hawks skipped town.

Some of us did. Some of us were the Seattle pro football equivalent of those Irish monks who preserved civilization through the Dark Ages. We were the ones wearing Joey Galloway jerseys when all of our friends were reppin' Junior or Shawn Kemp. We endured watching talented Seahawks teams hobbled by incompetent ownership flounder and stumble to 8-8 finish after 8-8 finish. We were the ones who pestered all of our friends into voting for R48 in the summer of 1997. As I wrote in this space once before:

I felt kinda isolated with my Galloway jersey and my love for a team that hadn't even posted a winning record since 1990. I was terrified that R48 would fail, Paul Allen would bolt, and the team would quickly become the L.A. Blackhawks or something. It passed statewide by 51.1% to 48.9%, or by just a hair under 37,000 votes. That was far less than the throngs who packed the Kingdome for M's games back then. 

I was going to Western at the time, and I had a weekly talk show on KUGS-FM called The Democratic Circus. I pushed HARD for my listeners to vote yes on R48, and I like to think I played a tiny part in its victory... Look at the Whatcom County (Bellingham) results:

Whatcom 
Yes 23794 
No 23361 

Sure, only about 100 people listened to my show on a GOOD night, but I like to imagine that a chunk of that 433 vote margin were folks swayed by my cogent, heartfelt arguments.

Another anecdote illustrates how much things have changed since Paul Allen took over... Everyone has their own story about the 9/11 atrocities, but mine actually touches on the Hawks. I went to the season opener in Cleveland on September 9, and I was leaving the next day to visit my family and college friends in the Northwest. The plan was fly to Pasco, hang out with my family in the Tri-Cities, then go to Seattle and, among other things, catch the Chiefs game on September 16. 

We all remember that game was postponed after the mass murder of 9/11, and I understood why, but having a game to go to that Sunday sure would have made ME feel better. I was out at breakfast that Sunday with a friend, wearing my Hasselbeck jersey. I admitted to her that I was depressed about the game being postponed, and this total stranger overhears me. He then snorts: 

"Seahawks? Who gives a crap about THEM?" 

I looked over to see this gastropod in an M's cap and a Ichiro jersey, obviously enjoying the Mariners' 116-win regular season... and hey, who could blame him? But I fucking SNAPPED. 

"Who cares? I DO! I've been a fan since I was 8 years old.. I'd bet a million dollars you didn't own a scrap of Mariners gear before August of 1995, man..." 

He gave me a VERY dirty look, but also shut the fuck up. Now do a thought experiment: Can you imagine a scenario where that would happen NOW? I can't. Thank you, Paul Allen.

I've been thinking about that guy today, wondering if he'll attend the Victory Parade or Celebration Rally at Seahawks Stadium. If so, that's cool. I'd never want anyone to NOT root for the Seahawks. New Twelves are always welcome in our big ol' tent. But I hope he reads this, and understands that if people like him had held sway back in the Ken Behring Dark Ages, that parade isn't happening in Seattle today. For those of us who have been waiting for this our whole lives, it's unfathomably satisfying- We're not only Champions, we just got to cheer on one of the greatest NFL teams of all time... A team that not only went 13-3 and boasted a historically great defense, but also beat Drew Brees, a Niners team that would have won the Super Bowl in almost any other season this century, and Peyton Manning to reach Pro Football's pinnacle (and today's parade probably won't be the last one the Seahawks have through the winding streets of Seattle in the years to come).

We earned this moment. Revel in it. Remember every detail. We're Champions together, and nothing will ever be the same. I love you guys. Thanks for being with me on the wildest ride of our lives.

GO HAWKS!

Top 5: Seahawks Beat Saints!

Our Seahawks debut in the NFL's annual postseason tournament this Saturday v New Orleans, facing a #6 seed that they whipped 34-7 barely more than a month ago. Before we look forward to that matchup, I'd like to make a few brief remarks about Seattle's sterling regular season. 

-The 2013 Seahawks were in some respects a mirror image of the 2005 team. The '05 Hawks had the NFL's number one offense and the number seven defense, while the '13s had the #1 defense and the #8 offense. The '05s had three All-Pros: Shaun Alexander, Mack Strong and Walter Jones (all offense), while the '13s trio of All-Pros were defenders (Sherman, Thomas and Chancellor). Both teams sent their QBs to the Pro Bowl (Hasselbeck and Wilson- in fact, the quarterbacks put up nearly identical stats). The '13s outpaced the '05s in point differential, +186 to +181. 

-Their legacy will be defined by their post-season performance, but based on the regular season Seattle's defense has a chance to go down as one of the greatest of all time. They lead the league in points allowed, overall yardage allowed, pass defense and turnover ratio. In a league where scoring is at all-time high, it would be a historic accomplishment if the Seahawks were able to win a World Championship behind a dominant defense. 

-Four games stand out when looking back at the regular season. Two were dominant wins on national TV over elite competition (A 29-3 demolition of the 49ers and that 27-point wipeout of the Saints), and two were furious comeback wins over inferior opponents (A 23-20 OT triumph over the Texans after falling behind 20-3, and a 27-24 OT win over Tampa Bay after trailing 21-0). These games highlighted two important qualities of the 2013 Seahawks: Their tendency to deliver their best performances when the pressure on them was the highest, and their refusal to give up when faced with seemingly impossible odds. Both of these attributes will serve them well in the postseason. 

Now the Hawks face the Saints once again, and while anything can happen (obviously), this is still a very favorable matchup for Seattle. Going back to the last meeting with New Orleans on December 2nd, the Seahawks' defense has allowed a minuscule 12.4 points per game. While Drew Brees is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, it's difficult to envision how he'll put up enough points to prevail over Seattle on Saturday. I'll say the Seahawks move on to the NFC Championship Game with a 27-16 win. This weekend's playoff game is the 14th meeting between these teams, and the Hawks have won 7 of the previous meetings. Here's a look back on the 5 best Seattle wins vs New Orleans. 

5. 11/18/79 Seahawks 38, Saints 24

Two weeks earlier, the Seahawks had suffered a humiliating 24-0 home loss to the eventual NFC Champion L.A. Rams (in which they were held to -7 yards of total offense). After an upset win at Cleveland, the Hawks came back home to face Archie Manning and the Saints, who were still very much alive in the NFC West race (for you kids out there- Back in Olden Times, Atlanta and New Orleans were in the NFC West. No, it really didn't make any sense). 

Peyton and Eli's Dad was outdueled by Jim Zorn, who scorched the Saints for 384 yards and four touchdowns. Steve Largent snagged 9 of Zorn's passes for 146 yards and two touchdowns. Seattle would win 5 out of their last 6 to finish at 9-7, and the loss would keep Manning and the forlorn Saints from making their 1st-ever playoff appearance. Those aforementioned Rams edged New Orleans to take the NFC West, and would become the first 9-7 team to reach the Super Bowl. 

4. 9/7/03 Seahawks 27, Saints 10

This game is notable for two main reasons. It's the last Seahawks home game that wasn't a sellout. I was there, and it was odd to see so many empty seats in our brand new stadium. Also, Ken Hamlin did this to Donte Stallworth: 

Despite almost dying ON THE FIELD, Stallworth had 8 catches for 101 yards that day. Shaun Alexander paced the Seahawks attack with 124 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns, and the Hawks would start an undefeated (and subsequently sold out) 2003 home schedule. 

3. 9/12/04 Seahawks 21 @ Saints 7

I was at this game in pre-Katrina New Orleans. This was back when Seahawks fans were still terrified at the prospect of a 10 am pacific road game to start the season, but Shaun Alexander's 166 total yards and three touchdowns led Seattle to a key road victory. Darrell Jackson chipped in with 7 catches for 98 yards, and the Hawks would run out to a 3-0 start before... well, I've blathered on about the torturous 2004 campaign before, haven't I? Here's some of what I wrote back then: 

Before the game there was a torrential downpour emptying its bowels upon the city… As I waited and waited and waited for the streetcar that would take me to the Superdome I got repeatedly soaked by passing cars… In a credit to all Saints fans, a cab driver in a Duece McCallister jersey gave me a ride to the Dome (for free no less! I tried to give him some cash, but he declined).. 

The Superdome reminded me of something out of a 70s vision of the future.. Very Logans Run/Rollerball. The best way to describe it (particularly for northwesterners) is to compare it to the old Kingdome. Imagine that they spent another $50 mil on the Kingdome putting down carpet, installing escalators, enclosing the ramps to the upper deck inside the building, and making it feel like a swanky convention center from 1976… Still a nice enough facility, but certainly of a bygone era.. Even the jumbotrons were quaintly small and fuzzy.. 

The game was technically a “sellout,” but it was blacked out on New Orleans TV and there was MAYBE a crowd of 45k on hand.. my section was less than half full, and most of the people in it were Seahawks fans (I got my tickets through the Hawks.. a special deal as a season ticket holder).. Generally the Saints fans were ok.. they seemed more interested in getting tipsy than giving me crap… 

2. 12/2/13 Seahawks 34, Saints 7

Despite a week of national media build-up about how the Seahawks were oh so vulnerable, and about how the Saints would take down a Seattle team ripe for an upset, the Hawks dominated Drew Brees and his associates from start to finish. Brees was held to a meager 147 yards passing, and Russell Wilson gouged the New Orleans defense for 3 touchdown passes and 357 total yards. 

Once again, we're starting to hear about how the Saints will take advantage of (largely imaginary) Seattle deficiencies this Saturday. They won't learn until Russell Wilson is holding the Lombardi Trophy in a few weeks, will they? 

1. 1/8/11 Seahawks 41, Saints 36

The "BeastQuake" is rightly recalled as the greatest play in franchise history, but what's gotten somewhat forgotten in the focus upon Lynch's heroic victory-sealing run is Matt Hasselbeck's virtuoso performance in his final home start as Seattle's quarterback. A week after Charlie Whitehurst led the Seahawks to a win over St. Louis to crawl into the playoffs at 7-9, many observers felt he should remain the starter against the defending World Champion Saints. Hasselbeck had limped to the 2010 finish line after a season where he had thrown only 12 TDs v 17 interceptions, only won 6 of his 14 starts, and posted a disappointing 73.2 passer rating. There wasn't much reason to hope that he'd lead Seattle to an upset win, but he tossed four touchdown passes to push the Hawks to a 34-30 4th quarter lead... and we all know what happened after that. 

I wrote this back then: 

I haven't gone more than a few hours without some total stranger remarking on how amazing the game was, or how loud the crowd was, or how Lynch's TD was the craziest run they'd ever seen. I've always worn my Seahawks fandom on my sleeve, and most of the time I have a "fuck you" attitude about it (because the most common reaction is usually "WHY are you a Seahawks fan?"), but since Saturday I've just been BEAMING with pride. 

There is such an intense sense of vindication right now for those of us who endured and stood by this team through the first 15 frustrating games of this season. For those of us who wished fervently for THIS team to prove the haters wrong, for those who never got fixated on next year's draft position, these have been a thoroughly satisfying few days. 

Has any Seahawks squad transformed its legacy in two weeks more than the 2010 version? On Boxing Day, you could have credibly argued that they were one of the 5 or 6 WORST teams the franchise has fielded. Now? They're one of only SIX squads (seven now) in franchise history to win a playoff game (1983, 1984, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010)! The legacy of Matt Hasselbeck was burnished, and Marshawn Lynch became a Seahawks legend based on a single, unbelievable play. No matter what happens in Chicago on Sunday (we'd lose 35-24), the Seahawks have reached the divisional playoffs four out of the last six years. Who else has made it to the NFL's "elite eight" four or more times since 2005? Baltimore, Indianapolis, New England and San Diego.

Here's the "SoundFX" treatment of that glorious win...

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