49ers 40, Seahawks 21

What do I tell you after another spectacular Seahawks implosion? This one is actually worse than our blowout losses to the Raiders, Giants, Saints or Chiefs. Those were all decent-to-good teams, but this Niners team came in 4-8, and no sane person would describe them as being worth jack shit. On top of that, this was a humiliating loss to a hated divisional foe- That's always going to angry up the blood of everyone in the fan base.

The most disheartening thing? Getting beat not because we were outclassed, but because we committed penalties, turned the ball over, and couldn't do fundamental things like tackling. What truly made my heart break was the horrible performance by Matthew Hasselbeck. It reached a sort of Apollo v Drago point, where I was hoping Carroll would yank him before he found a way to make this day any worse. I came into this day hoping to see Beck tie Dave Krieg's franchise record for wins by a starting QB, but instead he had probably the worst day of his decade-long Seattle career. On top of all that, it looked like Deon Butler suffered a fairly severe injury scoring a TD late in the 4th. Ugh.

This was a comprehensive, organizational failure from top-to-bottom. We looked terrible, and, after 13 games, by any objective measure, the Seahawks are a bad team.

You know this, and you can read it in a bunch of other places on the internet, in the newspaper... anywhere.

One skill I've honed as a fan over the years is an amazing ability to delude myself. It's serving me well these days, because the Seahawks aren't good at providing a lot of rational hope on their own. It's fashionable already to say "ah, I'd rather have the high draft pick than be a 7-9 playoff team." I can see that argument on an intellectual level, but emotionally it just doesn't work for me. When the Seahawks win, it makes me happy. When they lose, it makes me sad as hell. My perspective doesn't lend itself to long-term planning, but thankfully, I'm just a fan, not one of the team's front-office decision makers.

Writ large, the Seahawks making the playoffs would make me very happy, and them missing the postseason would depress me. You can talk all day about how a higher draft pick would benefit the team more in the long term, but frankly they aren't going to throw games to get there, and I'm not going to ROOT for the team to fail and make that happen.

The simple question is this: If the Seahawks are 6-9 going into the season's final Sunday, and can win the NFC West with a defeat of the Rams, are you REALLY going to root against them? I'm not. I won't. I can't. Sorry. If that makes me mushy-headed or short-sighted? Oh well.

The Rams just got blown out, and are likely to lose next week against the Chiefs (if Matt Cassell can go). The Niners might be celebrating now, but after losing to the Chargers on Thursday they'll be more or less done. I haven't given up hope that the Seahawks could steal one of the next two games- Atlanta could very well look past us to their showdown with New Orleans the following week, and Tampa Bay just barely beat a bad Redskins team today.

Even if the Seahawks lose the next two games- Even if they face the indignity of being the NFL's first 7-9 playoff team, I will be screaming my head off for them to win that final game against the Rams. Why?

Because I'm a Soldier of Twelve. It's all I know how to do.