Where I Am Now

A few months ago I stepped away from football blogging. It took me too long to marshal my facts and thoughts, and my teaching job is consuming (I'm having a good year so far). But more importantly, I just felt that there were better minds on the case within the Seahawks blogosphere. I don't want to be a pretender, like the Seahawks' 2007 defense. I don't want to be regarded as more knowledgeable than I am.

I've now started another blog, this one centered around my pursuit of Jesus Christ. He and the faith built around him are a much more natural fit for my mind and style. It's a much simpler and more refreshing arena, really an emotional antipole to 17 Power, girded with messages I really believe Christian millennials should hear.

That blog is now up and out of shakedown mode. If you're into this sort of thing, or you're curious as to who Jesus really is and what he represents, my thoughts can now be found here:

http://www.brandonjadams.com

I hope this new effort interests and encourages you. It'd be enjoyable to see you over there once in a while.

In the meantime, my sincerest thanks for all your interest and discussion over the years. I'll remain present on Twitter at @17power.

Go Hawks!

Seattle's youth bungle, then salvage Carolina victory

Today was a go/no-go for the Seahawks. Fork in the road, with a left turn leading straight to <.500.

Today the Seahawks picked the road less traveled by, sneaking past the underrated Carolina Panthers with a gorgeous TD throw by Russell Wilson down the seam to tight end Luke Willson. I likes.

With all the injuries hampering our play on both sides of the ball (and if you ask me, the injuries haven't gotten nearly enough credit for the team's struggles), it was good to see the Seahawks get back to winning ugly instead of losing pretty. That they did it on the road was reassuring. That they quietly cut down on the penalties was even more promising. That they gave their young bucks an opportunity to contribute and benefited from it - despite an infuriating stream of simple mistakes and missed opportunities from top to bottom - the young play may have been the most important feather in Pete Carroll's cap today.

The Seahawks' struggles lately are very simple: they're a victim of their own success. They've reminded the league how to play football. Other teams are adopting physical play, reliance on the run, and tools like the zone read. They're also taking the same strategy to Seattle's defense that one would Peyton Manning: keep 'em off the field. A steady dose of patient playcalling from the last few opponents has left Seattle's defense worn down by the end, prone to last-minute heroics. Teams have found ways to hurt Seattle right in its philosophy.

Today, Carolina ignored that strategy and paid for it in the final minute against Seattle's refreshed defense. Kudos to Russell Wilson for that final drive, but honestly, greater kudos to him for maintaining longer drives earlier in the field. It left the defense ready to close the deal.

Game.

It was good to see Seattle's youth step up, because it's time the coaching staff started closely examining what they've got on the bench. Keeping a Super Bowl team together is financially impossible, but it's starting to feel like the Seahawks hit reloading mode a little sooner and a little harder than even the most realistic of us expected. Left tackle is a question mark again. Our front seven is starting to show some holes. In general, the defensive line isn't getting the push they used to, and today's improved performance came against an injury-ravaged offensive line.

So when our rookies and sophomores started filling in the gaps, it was welcome. But...that's all they did.

We've got some backup linebackers that can flash and make some nifty plays in Kevin Pierre-Louis and Brock Coyle (go Griz!), but that's starting to feel like a good description for starter Malcolm Smith as well. Luke Willson and Cooper Helfet - look, it needs to be said, they're not Pro Bowl material. They're simply coming through on a weapon-starved team. They're raw on their fundamentals. But they stepped up when they were needed and never gave up. (Schools, corporations, and armies win on the backs of such people.) It still remains to be seen whether Bruce Irvin can become a consistent force at DE, and he's had quite a while to prove himself. Robert Turbin and Christine Michael are not the future. They're spot players, with due credit to Turbin for the hardy catch-and-runs he's showing lately. The staff needs to make more use of him there.

Then there's receiver. Until the Seahawks find themselves a Kelvin Benjamin, they'll probably be scrambling to win ugly more often than not. Don't get me wrong, we've had extraordinary luck with the receivers we have; scrappy, hard-hitting, full of fire, including what's looking vaguely like a possession receiver in Paul Richardson. These guys make the most of their opportunities, and I stand by that despite the numerous drops this month. But there's just no substitute for a catch-soaking #1 who can drag defenders deep and outleap even the tightest of coverage. You saw those benefits for Carolina today. It would just open up so much for the offense, which up until this point has looked like it's playing in the redzone all the time because of the limited ground our receivers cover. They just don't use space like they could.

Between all these shades of grey, it's not insane to think that Seattle could still benefit from another trip to the draft. Perhaps they have the bullets already waiting in the wings. Injuries have a silver lining: they afford a showcase for unknown talent on the bench. Countless NFL talents have gotten their chances that way. But there are some pieces that remain elusive for Seattle (and indeed for most teams, like that epic #1 receiver) that will not be found on the bench.

Whatever. We won. My criticisms aside, all our guys showed up and played hard when it counted. Sixty minutes.

And that's the most encouraging component of today's victory. The Seahawks showed character and resilience against the Panthers. With rumors of locker room divisions and departing stars swirling around the team like so much fog the last couple weeks, and with so many starters on the bench...most teams would not have been in a position to steal a win from a physical, promising conference rival like Carolina, especially in their house. But Seattle pulled it off. And they did it with their usual formula - run, physical, turnovers, Wilson's legs. It was a relief to see that the formula is not defunct.

Execution needs a shot in the arm. Max Unger and Zach Miller (underrated cogs in the run game, both of them) are sorely missed. Bobby Wagner is missed. Byron Maxwell was admirably covered for today, and you'd hope so given Seattle's emphasis on DB depth. And what is with the 12-men-on-the-field penalties lately?

But this team still has a lot of fight in it. The flaccid 2009 team was marked not so much by lack of talent as lack of hope. This team is not that team, nowhere close. And as long as that fight is there, the Seahawks can do what they did last year: hunker down and wait for their starters to return from injury.

Next week, the intrepid and unexpected Raiders QB Derek Carr has to demonstrate the patience and decision-making of Rivers and Romo if he expects to keep Seattle's offense off its own field. The Carolina game was a good matchup for Seattle, as Cam Newton is not the type of QB to avoid feeding the Legion. Carr is efficient and minimalist, closer to the necessary mold, but his running game is off track despite its talented backs. Their defense is pitiful.

Just what the doctor ordered.

Quick rant: another day, another game where careful study shows how overrated the importance of the offensive line is. Seattle's pass protection bounced back from last week's undeniably bad showing, but once again, far too much is being assumed. On the go-ahead touchdown throw to Luke Willson, the announcers immediately and instinctively credited good pass protection. Watch the TD again. It's a three-step drop from shotgun. Step, plant, throw. A quick timing play. The role of the offensive line is minimal in that kind of play - delay your man for a split second and you've got it. Yet instead of such nuances, the announcers just tossed up the idea that pass protection must have been amazing since Russell didn't run and the pass was complete. That's ignoring a lot. Broadcasters trade in cliches, and many of them are valid, but this is an instance of how excessively and reflexively chalking up good throws to the performance of the offensive line is a longstanding roadblock to fans' understanding of the game.

When Your Team Takes a Step Back

When a football team struggles, especially after a xenith of accomplishment like the Super Bowl, we fans look for one problem. We like to look for one problem. It gives us a comforting feeling of control, a sense that the solution is close. It's easier to fix one thing than to fix a multitude.

Because fixing a multitude of problems often requires a draft or three, or perhaps a coaching change. We don't want to hear about that.

No, I'm not advocating either action for the Seahawks. But after seeing Seattle edged out at home by a good NFC team they're probably going to see in the playoffs, I'm willing to say there are problems with the Seattle Seahawks. Small problems. Surmountable problems. But nonetheless, a multitude.

I don't think this really surprises any of us. We did win the Super Bowl. But many of us have, way in the back of our minds, the quiet nagging feeling that we won it despite. We won it despite inconsistent play-calling. We won it despite of injuries. We won it despite certain traits missing from our WR corps. We won it despite an offensive line that hasn't yet fully gelled.

Now, on one hand, if we can win a Super Bowl with all those issues, it says a lot of good things about the Seahawks. On the other hand, it leaves us riding the razors' edge. Twice this year, the Seahawks have slipped on the edge and lost to good but beatable teams. Now it's happened at home, and it's got me going back to my blog.

(Disclaimer: We're still 3-2, and have lost fairly narrowly to playoff-bound teams like our own. Put the rope away.)

It's been said lately that people are beating Seattle by using Seattle's game: smashmouth, leatherhelmet play focused on big hits, the running game, and a QB less focused on being the all and more focused on simply completing each pass that comes. This is true, but it's even more true than people say. Other teams are playing Seattle's game in a way that many have not acknowledged: they're simply not making mistakes. 

This is the secret of Russell Wilson's success. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes. You're not seeing him throwing Hasselbecks into double coverage. This is the explanation for some of the passing game's struggles in Seattle: what you're actually seeing is an ordinary passing game with all the risky throws removed. Seriously, all. With most other QB's, you'd be seeing a lot more cringe-inducing Favres. Wilson's are so rare that you can remember them by the month.

Tony Romo and Philip Rivers have beaten Seattle with this philosophy. They're contenting themselves with easier throws, taking what the defense gives them, filling in the gaps with heads-up improvisation, and they're doing it for four quarters. That's a patience reserved for few quarterbacks - the ones that appear in the playoffs. As for their defenses, missed tackles are rare and coverage assignments are tight. There's a lot to be said for staying out of one's own way, because it leaves the other team free to choke on its own miscues.

Seattle's miscues are not huge. But they're adding up. A good football game is a teeter-totter of tiny mistakes, and twice this season, Seattle's end has been just low enough to leave Wilson's theatrics out in the wind by the close.

Now...I feel good about Seattle losing to the more complete performance.

And I feel good that teams must resort to physical, mistake-free football (Seattle's philosophy) to beat them.

But we're still losing. And we're losing in a very gradual manner.

Today, Luke Willson, Doug Baldwin, and Jermaine Kearse all dropped (or had interfered with) clutch catches they usually make. The receivers on Dallas' side, on the other hand, didn't drop theirs.

Game.

On 3rd and 20 with 4:46 left to play and Dallas trailing, Bruce Irvin broke free on an edge rush and then whiffed twice on the sack of Tony Romo, who flashed a Wilson scramble and then got the ball into the hands of Terrence Williams way downfield.

Game.

Early on, Byron Maxwell had his mitts all over a sure pick-six on the Seattle goal-line. Instead of triumphing, he dropped it. After last week's contest Seattle currently leads the universe in dropped picks.

Game.

Over and over, DeMarco Murray and whatever nimble Swiss-army-knife guy to whom Tony Romo was slinging the ball would sidestep a Seahawks tackle and take it for another five yards. Our guys couldn't see to get into free space.

Game.

Both teams had their injuries. Bobby Wagner on the sidelines is ugly. Seattle's cornerback depth is like the Mars rovers - you can't believe how long it's lasted, but you live every second expecting its sudden implosion. Dallas also lost key guys, but it didn't stop them like it stopped us. Hello, Marcus Burley on the outside.

Game.

Dallas' offensive line had a couple of key holding penalties at crucial moments, enough to keep the game in question. But Russell Okung had his quickly-becoming-requisite two false starts to throw on top of a false start by the backup center.

Game.

Dallas gave DeMarco Murray his touches. Seattle did not reciprocate with Marshawn Lynch. I'm not about to jump all over the playcalling, which is a series of responses to a constantly shifting and evolving animal whose results only seem to look like a philosophy and are judged by fans without context. None of you would do better. Neither would I. Personnel problems go into playcalling as well (having a backup center doesn't boost a coach's confidence in the run game). But despite that, at the end of the day, Dallas gave DeMarco Murray his touches. Seattle did not reciprocate with Marshawn Lynch.

Game.

Losses like these are built brick by frustrating brick over sixty minutes by tiny mistakes. The score is close by the end, but you can always trace the loss back to a handful of moments. There is no one that stands out. It's the amalgamation of them that kills you. This is why I rarely gripe about officiating. There are always bad calls. They go against both teams. But even in Super Bowl XL, there were numerous opportunities Seattle missed that still could have changed things.

Game.

Attrition has now struck twice this season, and the league is starting to smell blood.

Who would like to see Seattle in command of these games as Dallas was, instead of racing to make up for their own mistakes and building an offense more through broken plays than intentional ones?

I wish I could point to one thing, say "fix this", and leave you feeling like that's all it takes. Many writers are unconsciously led by that impulse. But it would be dishonest. Seattle amassed small chinks in every phase and in every unit today, kept themselves in it with gut and the Cowboys' perennial CenturyLink Field special-teams collapses, and then shattered at the end. A common story in the NFL. That sinking late-second-quarter feeling of "the mistakes are starting to pile up and we'll be vulnerable to a couple of clutch plays in the fourth quarter" is starting to become familiar. Indianapolis. Arizona. San Diego. Dallas.

Credit where credit is due. And that's just it. The victory was earned by Tony Romo, who played one of the finest games of his career today. Seattle has shown that they can only be beaten by complete performances from solid teams. But that doesn't change the fact that they have been beaten. We need to be the solid team with a complete performance. That's how we won last year. Well, no - not really. Not often enough. Too often, we were the team with Russell Wilson's legs and a lot of sprightly luck. It's starting to feel like the Mars rovers.

Complete football. It's what we need to attain. There is no substitute for it. No "Seahawks philosophy" or talented personnel pickup has ever been a substitute for it. Solid, mistake-free football.

I wish I had a handy "this is the way out of worry" solution to suggest to fans while the Seattle coaching staff ignores it. Many of you came here hoping for one. But there isn't one. Resist the temptation to think along those lines. It's rarely the case. The Seahawks simply have to go back to the tape, work on their craft, and cut down on the mistakes. There isn't much more to say. There isn't much more to do.

And when you boil it all down, that's actually a really good thing to say about your football team.

Just the Beginning

It still hasn't sunk in.

The Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl. The SEAHAWKS! Yeah, those Seahawks!

Just four years after posting a 5-11 record, the Seattle Seahawks are world champions.

After more than three decades without a championship, the city of Seattle is on top of the world.

After two weeks of practically every NFL pundit shaking their talking head at Seattle's chances in the face of Peyton Manning's offensive onslaught, the legendary QB has been humbled and sent home by...MY TEAM.

Whoa. My team. Out of all the working joes in the world, the football gods shine upon the team I'M rooting for. I get to be amongst the 3% of the world who can claim we did it.

It's over. No more games. No more breakdowns, analyses, and predictions. No more practice reports, expert prognostications, fretting over matchups, or ignoring taunts from enemy fan bases. No more digging for news on lasting injuries, substance suspensions, or appeals. No more looking ahead. No more hand-wringing over what might have been. No more cursing the referees.

The season is over. The Seahawks are on top of the pack. For the first time, the long six months of the offseason hold no angst over how close we came or what we need to reach the top next year. At long last, it's time to relax and bask in pure, unadulterated success.

Does it get any better than this?

Actually, it does. In a number of ways.

The Finest Win of the Pete Carroll Era...So Far

Russell Wilson throwing fourth-quarter picks and running for his life. Richard Sherman vomiting on the sidelines. Marshawn Lynch pumping his legs desperately from within a crowd of tacklers. Doug Baldwin being tossed about like a rag doll. Michael Bennett lying in a hospital bed, anxiously awaiting a CTC scan. Two Pro Bowl offensive linemen sitting thousands of miles away and powerless to help against a fully healthy Texans team.

And yet here we stand, fans of the first 4-0 Seahawks team in history.

The sheer incredulous delight is unspeakable.

How do we quantify this? How do we capture the gritty, determined, unshakeable belief that this team displays week after week? The analyst in me wants to get to the source, wants to extrapolate it to next week. I want to know where it comes from.

Maybe that's what bugs me. It doesn't feel like we can quantify it. It just happened. It's an intangible. I hate intangibles. I can't systemize or predict them, they just decide whether to happen or not.

Or maybe what bugs me is the fact that the only discernible cause seems to be the gut and fortitude of QB Russell Wilson. When he gets going, things happen. Release the guy from the trap of Bevell's mewling play calls and opponents just start collapsing. And something in me sinks. That feels dangerous. I wish the trigger to Seattle's patented comebacks did NOT rest with one man. It feels like there's no redundancy there. Like it's not sustainable.

Yet the Seahawks now stand on a nine-game streak of regular season wins, four of them those classic road nailbiters that all came down to fourth-quarter fireworks by Russell Wilson. Starting with the Bears, up to the present day. It sure doesn't look like a mirage or a situational fluke. Instead, it looks like a champion. I'm not sure what more the Seahawks can do to prove their readiness for the big stage. All they can do now is play on it.

Some of us don't want to rest on intangibles. We want understandable factors, tangible causes and effects, something we can use to guess next week's outcome. We turn our noses up at "belief" and "resilience", dismissing it as the product of over-exciteable sports media, and try to explain things in terms of the X's and O's that make us feel more in control. And surely those played a part today.

But this team's habit of winning ugly makes us feel frustratingly out of control. We truly are along for the ride with this team, no matter how many swings of momentum we experience along the way, no matter how many times Golden Tate stops our hearts by returning punts from the end zone, no matter how many of those awful ugh-I'm-done towel throws we suffer through. Have they let us down yet?

Nothing should have gone right for the Seahawks today. We were on the road. The offensive line was spotted with backups against the AFC's finest defensive line. Our receivers were off their game against CB Jonathan Joseph. The Texans had actual receivers to throw at the Legion of Boom, and a QB to utilize them. It's hard to overstate just how much more talent Houston's passing offense boasts over our last three opponents. It's not even close. Schaub looked rattled in the second half, all right, but given time he can slice and dice the best of them, especially a Seattle linebacking corps that hadn't been truly tested in coverage yet. It's a fact that was lost amidst the mockery of Houston's slow start this year, and they chose today to unearth it again. For a while, the league's #1 defense was badly exposed.

And on a day when Seattle looked determined to undermine themselves with timid and repetitive play-calling that played right into Houston's hands and away from Russell Wilson's strengths, it seemed that rawness and injury were just the recipe Houston needed. This went beyond simply needing a comeback. The Seahawks looked flat-out incompetent in all three phases and didn't have the bullets on offense to compensate. Halftime adjustments seemed pointless. I confess I was already trotting out the "it's just one game, better health will shift our fortunes" lines.

But the darkness didn't hold. Perhaps I should say it was Doug Baldwin who actually flicked the switch, with his requisite weekly OMG-did-that-just-happen miracle catch (he has 123 yards on such catches in four games). Perhaps it was Wilson pulling more of that old spinning, freewheeling scramble magic and picking up first down after first down. Perhaps, as Richard Sherman said, it was the unexpected return of grievously injured Michael Bennett that sparked the team from the sidelines. Whatever it was, the defense heard it. They woke up and slammed the door on Matt Schaub in the fourth quarter.

Seattle was outgained badly in yards and time of possession. Wilson was horribly beat in passing stats. They didn't get a third-down conversion until impossibly late. Schaub, at least for three quarters, was the one with the gaudy conventional whiz-bang that analysts eat up because they understand it. On this day, every number on the planet pointed towards a Houston win - maybe a close one, threatened briefly by admirable Seattle grit, but a Houston win nonetheless.

Pete Carroll's team wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than a win. In the end, the numbers on the scoreboard contradicted every other. How Seattle continues to win with Wilson getting half the passing yards of the other guy, look 20 points down while leading by three, week in and week out is just crazy.

This team keeps giving me reasons to silence my inner cynic. The irritable contrarian that wants to grouse about how Seattle needs an entire platoon of pass rushers to match the production of a single JJ Watt. The peevish churl who loses faith against any actual pocket-passing quarterback because we seem forever barred from finding the linebackers to shut him down. The nattering naysayer who's critical of the Michael Robinson cut and disappointed with our tight end situation and aching for a consistent separation receiver and OMG WHY CAN'T YOU GUYS JUST SUCCEED MORE CONVENTIONALLY SO MY SEAHAWKS FANDOM DOESN'T FEEL LIKE LIFE ON A HIGH WIRE!!!

Yep, that guy needs to shut up.

This is a game whose significance leapt beyond records and statistics and into the realm of statements, character, and immortal sports memories. No Seahawks game of the Pete Carroll era has had the odds more heavily stacked against them. Their resilience has done nothing but produce a string of wins and lead the team to its first-ever 4-0 start. At some point, success becomes hard to criticize. We're past that point.

The Seahawks have nothing more to prove, except that they can win a Super Bowl. That is the lone remaining hurdle. This team has once again stared valley-of-the-shadow-of-death adversity in the face and overcome. If you don't yet grasp this team's entertainment factor, I don't know what you're waiting for. The Seahawks are where miracles happen. Repeatedly.

Hope, Hype and the Super Bowl (AKA Put a Sock in it, John Morgan)

John Morgan is once again blogging Seahawks. Recently, as I extricated myself from the cobwebs of summer, I found he had posted this. It's basically telling fans what they should be thinking right now: to wit, the Seahawks will win at some point in the Pete Carroll era, but there's no way to predict whether it will be this year. And therefore, we should not invest too much hope in 2013. Or something.

I agree with the underlying idea. Lombardi trophies are hard to predict: they're basically won by the playoff team with the best turn of luck that year. Fine and good.

Of course, Morgan fails to offer any concrete prediction of his own. And there's little to his actual prognostication besides some POW story and the observation that Russell Wilson gets almost-sacked a lot. (He probably posted a fuller analysis somewhere else, I can't be bothered to look right now.) But it's fair and defensible to say that projections can only go as far as the playoffs, and hope the ball bounces your way after that. It almost did for Seattle last year.

What I really take exception to is the article's attempt to define hope. Or structure it, or reevaluate it, or constrain it like veal, whatever.

Closing Down the Blog

The 2012 season has come to a close, and there's no way to view it as anything but a whopping success for the Seattle Seahawks. Against all seeming odds, we have found our quarterback of the future. We have a defense loaded with talent. Our offense is well-defined and resilient. And both sides of the ball are still on the way up, with our team philosophy firmly in place.

It's a great note on which to end my brief career as a football blogger.

Every once in a while, it's good to take note of what you're doing and ask whether you're making the most of your time and talent. The world is a struggling place, and needs each one of us to be exactly who we are, in the best manner we can manage. Perhaps that sentence makes football bloggers sound superfluous, but I don't think it has to be that way. Guys like the ones at Fieldgulls obviously have a life beyond football. They're contributing. Football is a passion for them that moves them to write, elevates others' thinking, lets us support our team and our cause in a smart and well-informed way.

But when I started asking myself questions about maximizing my time and resources, my answers didn't fall in the same place. I'm a teacher. If there's one area of education that we could address before reflexively looking to blame government and money allocation, it would be teacher work ethic. The profession is filled with teachers who are checked out, phoning it in, going through the motions. They are shortchanging students of their highest potential and making harder the jobs of every teacher who comes after them. These kids are our country's future.

Allow me a moment on the soapbox: if you are a teacher who's merely a placeholder and has no real interest in the dozens of children under your charge, then you need to get out. Now. It doesn't matter how hard it would be for you to find another job - the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Step aside and allow your job to be filled by someone who loves children, believes in their subject, and has the patience and generosity to walk with them and turn them into the best they can be.

That's my calling. And when it comes right down to it, I have neither the time nor the football knowledge to justify continuing this blog.

I honestly don't know much about football. I really don't. That's not a diss on myself, and it's not fishing for reassurance. It's just a fact. I'm fine with not knowing much. What I do know comes from reading others. And one thing I don't want to be is a guy who's writing about his level, even if he can disguise it with his writing. Occasionally I'll have a perspective that nobody has yet touched, and can be written without a great deal of X's and O's. Those are my articles. But with the proliferation of new blogs and the riches of knowledge from others within the Seahawks blogosphere, those moments seem to become rarer and rarer. And I'm okay with that. As long as the thoughts are out there, does it matter who writes them?

To be a quality blogger - and that's what I'd want to be if I were to keep doing this - you have to be a certain sort of person. You have to be a quick researcher. You must be able to dash off a well-supported, knowledgeable essay without taking days to write it. I'm not that sort. I start a piece with good intentions, take hours to write it, go back over it the next day, rewrite it at least twice, find new information that supports or contradicts my piece, rewrite it again, pull my hair out, and by the time I've gotten close to publishing, the entire week has gone by, everyone else has already talked about it, and posting it would seem lame and out-of-touch. Such is the fast-paced world of internet opinion. Perfectionists have no place in the world of blogging.

You also have to have a certain objectivity, the ability to criticize football players who are working harder than any of us to achieve a dream that none of us could ever hope to achieve, along with that subtle dash of feigned world-weary snark that fleshes out your writing personality. I realized at some point this season that I don't want to be that guy. I'm too sentimental. Too longing. I wouldn't have the strength to be on the other end of the withering demands of football critics. I don't want to relish that tiny grin of sarcastic delight in blithely dismissing those fringe players laboring through the preseason for a spot only one of them, at most, can grab. And if I wouldn't want to be on the other end, I can't in good conscience stay on this one. That's for the people who can console themselves that those roster cuts will find other jobs and be perfectly fine. Hard for me to remember that, for some reason.

I pondered all that this season and gradually realized that nothing in my internal monologue was pointing towards me as a long-term blogger. There was also the dawning realization of just how hard one has to work to achieve real profile as a sports critic - the regularity of posting, the demands of solid research, the networking and living on Twitter, the near-shameless self-promotion that turns bloggers into helpless self-retweeters who have no dignity but can't get any visibility any other way. That's how it has to happen, and I just realized I have no interest in it. Call it pride, call it laziness, call it lack of time management, call it I have a job, whatever. But I took one look at it and it turned me off to blogging as a side career.

Not that having 600 followers and even more readers isn't worth it. You guys have been great. Wonderfully supportive even in my retarded moments. You've convinced me that I have a future in writing, even if it won't be in football (I may actually be starting another blog soon, this one revolving around Christianity, if you're into that sort of thing). I think I've carved out my little niche in the blogosphere, and am proud of the moments worth being proud of. It's just not fair keeping all of you guys on tenterhooks while I struggle to come up with a blogging voice that's probably just not going to come.

The 2012 season has been a great ride. It's restored my hope in the Seahawks. It's seen the return of competitive balance in the NFL. The run still matters. Defense still matters. There's still plenty of room for innovation. I can't tell you how reassuring it's been to have my fears averted. The Seahawks are going to be around for a long time. What a great future the 12th Man has.

And I will be sharing it with you. 17 Power is closing down, but I'll be lurking around and rooting with you. Maybe on Twitter. I do see a Lombardi trophy in our future, and I hope to see you around in the moment Russell Wilson hoists it up.

Until then, don't let anyone tell you the odds. When you're cringing and peeking through your fingers with dreadful certainty of defeat, when hope is hard to cling to and seems to teeter on the edge of your long-earned cynicism, remember that you never know when some dude on the sidelines might call "17 Power". So long.

Why I'm Rooting for a 49ers-Ravens Super Bowl

Yeah, I said it. I hope the 49ers win in Atlanta. In fact, I hope they leave the Falcons bruised and groaning on the field on their way to face the Ravens, who have just gotten done doing the same thing to Tom Brady.

Does that make me a traitor to the 12th Man? I don't know. But I've got a reason, and it has nothing to do with wanting to see the NFC West, for all the mockery its endured, become the division with the most SB appearances in the last twelve years, though it would accomplish that. (It also has nothing to do with any tired Harbaugh vs Harbaugh storyline, thank you very much.)

Nah, I'm just so sick of the era of hoity-toity elite quarterbacks. So fed up with one-man teams.

Not that I have anything against Matt Ryan, doesn't seem to have that prima donna vibe about him (yet. Let's wait until he gets a ring or two. It got to Aaron Rodgers). But what are the Falcons mostly relying on? It isn't defense and it sure isn't their running game. It's that vaunted air-raid offense of theirs, Roddy White and Julio Jones and Tony Gonzalez magneting every laser-accurate throw from Ryan into their mitts. Unique perhaps in its details, but still a philosophical carbon copy of that daunting deus ex machina of team styles, the pass-first spearheaded by a hyper-accurate, tall-in-the-pocket QB without whom the entire team falls apart.

Let's be honest, most people outside Atlanta probably don't even know the names of anyone else on the Falcons roster. Because they don't need to.

Booooorriiiiinnnnggg.

Meanwhile in Seattle, Pete Carroll has built something incredible. You might have heard of it about 15 years ago. It's called a FOOTBALL TEAM. As in, a group of talented individuals whose collective contributions to success are measurable. Probably much more evenly spread around than the 80% QB, 20% everything-else-combined distribution we see on these methodical pass-first teams that have been hogging the limelight since Brady lit up. Ever since then, it's felt like the only breath of fresh air from one-man storylines has been...the Steelers. Kudos to them for keeping the idea of "team football" on life support all these years, I suppose, but that team is NOT a breath of fresh air.

In Seattle, you have a wide arrangement of players making noise, enabling success, and gaining notoriety.

Russell Wilson, for all his heroics, is nothing without the threat of Marshawn Lynch, and many of his biggest plays can be directly attributed to some defender bracing for Lynch and instead seeing a play-action bomb whizz over their heads.

Lynch, in turn, is nothing without Michael Robinson and his (patchwork, lunch-pail, not-first-and-second-round-picks-everywhere) offensive line.

Golden Tate, Sidney Rice, and Doug Baldwin have bailed Wilson out, how many times?

And none of this is a diss on Wilson, obviously, because there is no seriously dissing the guy. It's just team football.

And how is the defense coming along? I almost think that Richard Sherman keeps his mouth running almost purely because he, too, is tired of one-man football and wants Seattle to be seen as a team. He certainly made it sound that way to Brady. The entire Legion of Boom will be infamous. Bobby Wagner will get up there. Red Bryant has gotten a few moments in the sun. And I'd like to think Pete isn't done filling the defense with smashmouth talent. Not even close.

Over in Denver, you have Peyton Manning getting his own bloody five-second sideline reaction shot whenever his team gets a punt return touchdown. Seriously? He wasn't even involved in that. Why does the Face of Peyton need to be consulted about things that don't even involve him? Christian Ponder doesn't get that. What's next, a two-hours Sportscenter special on Peyton's opinion of Manti Te'o? Is the man really that god-almighty important???!!!

Why do I want the 49ers and Ravens in the Super Bowl? Because the Harbaughs, like Pete Carroll, are revolutionizing football. Or better yet, they are returning it to its roots. Reviving a brand of the game that we thought was dead. They are making the "team" relevant again. They are at the forefront of the trend of taking apart those annoying, seemingly invincible superstar QB's with their supermodel wives, neutronium contracts, and untouchable receivers. They are liberating other NFL teams from the "find an elite pocket passer or you have no chance" draft strategy that has held them hostage for years.

I'll be frank - I used to dread the draft. For a while there, in 2011 as passing records fell without Peyton Manning even contributing to them, the dominance of passing seemed to be shutting down every draft strategy but one. All that mattered was finding that guy who could challenge Aaron Rodgers/Drew Brees and then Tom Brady/Peyton Manning. Not an easy task, to say the least. The running game didn't matter anymore, argued I as I ground my teeth down, because nothing indicated that it did. The passing league sucked a lot of the fun out of the draft, left me clinging to the closest prototype in Ryan Mallett. What was the point otherwise?

Last year when the Packers didn't float right back to the Super Bowl, undermined by the regression of their defense, I was a little shocked. I'd bought into the idea that the NFL was a passing league. I also suspected that the NFL would make whatever changes it needed to keep it that way, out of a greedy desire for more points and thus higher ratings. (The decade is still young.)

When the Patriots were (again) brought up short by the smashmouth Giants shortly afterwards, it was shock with a flavor of elation coming into it. Defenses specifically built to hold down elite QB's were succeeding on a sustained basis. What was this?

By the time Seattle shook off last year's Cowboys defeat and put together a 5-3 streak on the back of  Marshawn Lynch, defense, and physicality, the shock had been partially replaced by a biiiiiig, dumb grin. Real football - was it making a comeback? I hoped. I leaned forward. The pass defense still needed to prove itself against the 2012 slate of quarterbacks, rather than last year's murderer's row of Rex Grossman, Vince Young, and Caleb Hanie. But maybe it was real. If this team could find efficiency and success with Tarvaris Jackson at the helm, what more might be possible with even a modest upgrade?

And now, of course, even with the conference championships still to be played, the battle between NFL philosophies has been decisively blown back open. Finesse is proving NOT to be the needle's eye that we thought it was. Green Bay refused to acknowledge it last week and limped home with Colin Kaepernick's bootprints all over their - well, wait, I can't say that, because they never even managed to touch him. Athleticism and resilience have a place after all. There's still variety, strategy, intrigue, and real competitiveness possible for any football team that find an identity and draft well.

Two of those teams, the 49ers and Ravens, are playing for a chance at the big dance this weekend. The other two, possible relics of an already antiquated oligarchy that might (please God) be turning out to be just another swing of the pendulum, had to wade through two other tough run-first teams to get there. Seattle, San Fran, Baltimore, Houston, even Minnesota and Washington - these are teams built on innovation, independent thinking, team contributions, running, defense, big hits, and confidence. They give teams bloody noses and make their next opponent suck in an anxious breath. They can beat you multiple ways. They don't need elite QB's to win at the high level. They just need the best from everyone. They're even finding a place for special teams, for crying out loud! Somebody pinch me. (Not you, Danny Kelly. You're always trying to pinch me.)

Do I feel bad for Peyton charging back into the league and snatching up every single one of the NFL front-page photos, only to sputter in his first playoff chance since major surgery? Feel-good comeback story ruined? Kinda...but not really, no. The man probably has vacation homes worth more than the nation of Chad. And he knows it's not all about him. He did enough to win. He can blame that safety of his who took a little-league angle on a desperate hail mary and allowed overtime to Joe Flacco. Team.

The NFL's hype machine would probably implode into a black hole if Ryan, Brady, Manning, Manning, Luck, RG3, Brees, AND Rodgers were all to miss the Super Bowl in the same year. And I realize that Joe Flacco belongs in that category of QB's that gets nothing but snide dismissal from pundits and fans for not being in Brady's tier. Can't say that the league would find easy narratives in such a situation. They might have to actually do some heavy research as to who's playing defensive backfield for the 49ers, spread the glory around a bit, force people to acknowledge the existence of 40 players instead of the fun-sized "Dude vs Dude" sound bites that our somnambulant nation prefers.

But after the 2012 season and its celebration of read-option, reinvention, razzle-dazzle, and TEAMWORK, it would be so poetic to see all those pretty-boy QB's barred from the Super Bowl by virtue of not having a complete team behind them. Left to watch the game from their mansions while two actual football teams slug it out 1970's-style. Even if the Seahawks couldn't be there, it would feel like major validation for them and their style.

And wouldn't it be absolutely mind-blowing to see Joe Flacco come out with the Lombardi trophy? A mediocre QB winning the Super Bowl? How can that be? (And why is it always the Ravens doing it?) Gee, maybe a team effort still matters. What a great note for Ray Lewis to end on - a defensive legend helping seal the world championship. A poetic reminder that football, along with all its storylines, should be about 53 guys and not just 3 or 4. The Ravens should definitely win this. (You weren't expecting me to root for "one for the other thumb" for San Francisco, were you?)

The Seahawks may not be playing any longer (though they lost with dignity and made me proud), but the 49ers match our style well. Match it better than ever with Colin Kaepernick now entrenched. I wonder if our Seahawks players will be watching with a guilty pride and hope as their philosophical brethren represent them, test out their shared team model in the ultimate venue. Seattle has already beaten some of those elite QB's. The defense that did it is still getting younger and better. The future is bright. For once, instead of being left behind by the trends, we're riding the leading edge. We're pioneers. And 49ers fans are already ticking off next year's away game as a loss.

I was so hoping it would be Seattle over Denver in the playoffs. How fitting, to prevail with our fiercely independent style and a 5'11" rookie QB, over the superstar QB who represents the conventional thinking we just spent a season bucking and who sniffed at our free-agent feelers in the offseason. But I guess our present situation will have to do.

Let's go, Ravens and 49ers. Prove to us that real football is back.

Seahawks Come Back to Earth in a Winning Way, 20-13

Michael Robinson denies the Rams an upbeat ending.

I usually like to go against the grain, but today I'm just gonna go along with the general narrative. It's fully true - Seattle needed this game. They needed a "humility check", in Tim Ryan's words, before heading into the playoffs. Not because they were cocky or arrogant, exactly, but because there's nothing like experience to undergird a truth. Seattle isn't invincible and they're not going to be scoring 40-burgers all the time.

The Seahawks needed this style of game, a knock-down, drag-it-all-out brawl of a 20-13 victory over another physical team. The Rams are good. A few years of drafting has brought them back to respectability, and they have the head coach to make them a threat in any venue on any weekend. Kudos to Jeff Fisher and the Rams for a solid test for these Seahawks. Given the youth of these two teams, this, rather than the 49ers, is the rivalry that will probably last the longest in this era of the NFC West.

Let's be honest here - the Cardinals, Bills, and 49ers were not that challenging for Wilson. Losing Justin Smith doesn't entirely excuse the 49ers defense, but Wilson doesn't need that big of a crack. Give him anything and he'll break a game wide open with his mobility and cool head, and if that's not enough, try overcoming the additional momentum of Red Bryant blocking stuff. The blowouts were fun and got the Seahawks some much-appreciated national respect, but today, the Rams gave Wilson nothing. It was the most that any team has demanded of him this year. It was the toughest game of December for them, a grind and a scheme-tester.

And the Seahawks pulled it out. They hung in there. Despite a well-executed defensive setup from St. Louis, despite the offensive mistakes of youth coming back to haunt them, despite every effort from Jeff Triplett's referee crew to stifle both teams (apparently they wanted another tie), despite that horrible sinking feeling that the Miami game was repeating itself, Seattle pulled it out. They maintained focus, they never lost their heads, and they stayed in to live another set of downs. Eventually, the big plays finally started rolling in without yellow flags attached, and the offense trotted into the history books abreast of Peyton Manning (Wilson's 26 passing touchdowns for a rookie) and Adrian Peterson (Marshawn Lynch with ten 100-yard games in a season).

That's fodder for some serious pride, and it's a sign of maturity on this team. In my humble opinion, it says more about the Seahawks than any game since Chicago. Bring on the playoffs.


Since we're thinking about reality checks, this game highlighted some personnel issues than Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch have been covering up for weeks. Despite appearances that are understandably deceiving when your team is up by 20 points, Seattle's roster has some vulnerabilities heading into the postseason. If there is a playoff exit by this team, these seem like the likeliest avenues through which it will come.

It it comes. I give this team a legitimate chance to win it all.


Offense: Limited receiver separation

Give St. Louis their due for finally developing a strong plan for stopping Russell Wilson. The Rams D-line did a good job of containing the edges and keeping Wilson from slipping out into space. This left him pumping in the pocket looking for targets. Along with some well-timed stuffs of Lynch early on, the Rams were able to shut down an offense that had just scored 150 points in its last three games. Seattle's right-side O-line deserves some grace in light of the defensive line it faced, despite its horrid performance.

The Rams' plan in a nutshell: force Wilson to be Peyton Manning by stuffing the run, containing the edges, and requiring Wilson to beat the blitz through the air. In other words, a complete defensive effort. That's probably the closest thing to a blueprint for stopping this Seattle offense that exists at this point, though it required a very talented and well-coached defense to do it. (It's a little disappointing that Darell Bevell didn't try so much as a single screen or swing pass that I can offhand remember. A back-to-earth moment for him as well.)

How does an offense address this? If you look back over the last two months and watch Wilson's biggest plays with an objective eye, you'll notice that he's needing a lot of scrambling and improvisation to make it happen. He succeeds, so nobody questions them or looks for a cause. But it's an indicator that our wide receiving corps, now even more depleted than earlier, has nobody who gets quick separation or clears out zones consistently, leaving Wilson in the pocket tomahawking empty air with the football. He's not going to make a lot of risky throws (nor should he), so he needs that separation. And against defenses that can contain the edges, like St. Louis, that will leave him exposed, the O-line overburdened, and the offense jerky and stop-start like it was today.

Part of averting any sophomore slump for Wilson, in my opinion, lies with restacking our WR corps. They're obviously not going to leave the roster with four guys including Jermaine Kearse, so this is moot. But I'm looking forward to guys who can break off crisp routes and flash open quickly, and/or offer a deep threat to draw coverages away. Give Wilson even more options, hand Lynch a couple more yards up front, make defenses work even harder. Perhaps not in the first round, because Wilson's height will hide some of the shorter stuff anyway and thus can't fully justify a big WR investment. Cobi Hamilton of Arkansas has recently caught my eye as fitting the PC bill; I might write more about him soon.



Defense: Interior pass rush, slot cornerback

Seattle's pass rush was once again unaccounted for, negating the best coverage efforts of our secondary (even Marcus Trufant had a couple wily plays from the slot). Worse yet, today was the worst home performance we've seen from this unit all year. This will not do, either against Tony Romo or Robert Griffin III, to say nothing of who comes afterward. DT Jason Jones' move to IR has proven his value in retrospect, but even he may be too oft-injured to be the answer. An answer is needed, because despite Bruce Irvin's eight sacks this year, his impact has been spotty. Like Aldon Smith, he needs a lightning bear next to him to open up opportunities up the middle, and he needs experience, more pass-rush moves, and more discipline. As it is, he's still sorta the delayed-gratification pick he was in Week 1.

Earlier last week, CB Walter Thurmond tweeted that his season had come to an end. The Seahawks never confirmed that they had moved Thurmond to IR. Don't hold your breath expecting him to wind up there this week either, as neither Marcus Trufant nor Jeremy Lane performed particularly well in his absence. Lane has promise, but remains as raw as a rug burn. Pete Carroll has established a habit of making roster moves based on what other talent he has available on his roster. It says a lot about Thurmond's potential that Pete drafted him in the fourth round after a gruesome college injury and then hung onto him up until this point. He might still have a place on this team.

The linebacking corps is not a glaring need nor necessarily demands a first-round move, as few 4-3 defenses are known for their linebackers. Also, only a churl would complain about the linebackers on the #1 scoring defense. But you could say that OLB is perhaps not "competition-proof". Perhaps we should just settle for a stud defensive tackle and see what Malcolm Smith and KJ Wright become.


Conclusion

The Seahawks have defied my expectations. A young team with a bunch of rookies and sophomores, especially at vital positions - I figured 10-6, but with my projected wins concentrated in very different parts of the schedule.

Instead, the Seahawks have played tough, persevered through ups and downs and some undeserved criticism from fans and media alike. The result: the 3rd 11-win season of the franchise against incredibly touch competition, the #1 scoring defense, a rookie QB breaking records and vying for Offensive Rookie of the Year (who cares, go to the Super Bowl!), five Pro Bowlers and a gaggle of alternates including the best cornerback in the league, all the love that DVOA can muster, a playoff berth that was an agonizing Braylon Edwards drop away from being the #2 seed...

...and most importantly, validation. The Rams handed this team a knuckle sandwich today, and they spun around and jumped right back into the fray. They are alive in January with the experience, credibility, and self-confidence to be considered a legitimate NFC title contender. Imagine them after this upcoming draft, rich in all the missing pieces this team needs.

This could get really, really good.

You Were Here When the Butterfly Opened its Wings

150 points in 3 games.

For comparison, the 1992 squad scored 140 points in that entire season. Now, 100 consecutive points at home with no answering score from the whoever the hell was forced to endure a trip to Seattle. Annihilation, destruction, havoc and Jim Harbaugh's face left blank. It all adds up to the team nobody wants to play. Drop to your knees and thank the lord of schedule making, Indy, you get to keep living in your paper palace. Nobody knows what a fraud you are, because you don't have to face the Seahawks.

This was not expected by even the devoted. Not this. Until we saw it with our own eyes, this offense was an exercise in potential. There was no proof it was even possible, with 30 points being the most we had scored in a single game all season.

What happened? I was pretty vocal about the playcalling up to and after the Miami game, and I felt validated about those criticisms when Pete acknowledged they could have thrown it a bit more. Our offense was multiple, but there was a governor on the throttle, and that governor was a call sheet and Motorola mic in the hands of Darell Bevell. But it wasn't really. Pete was afraid of turnovers, and he had to learn just like everybody else to put his faith in Russell Wilson. Pete was the governor on our throttle.

Our offense has consisted of Run and Deep Shots, and if the safety is covering too, roll out and throw it away. We played that game for most of the season and 55 minutes in Chicago. Sure, there was the occasional changeup to the formula, but it felt like 55 minutes of dueling with wooden practice swords more than strategic playcalling. The governor was still in place, and a defense that had played great was looking like it would get the blame for giving up 14 measly points. Because we had 10. 

And with Seattle's backs against the wall, Pete finally removed the governor. He finally allowed Russell to be the player the other team has to worry about. He finally let the point guard decide when he drives and when he dishes. 

When that warrior had secured the victory, we could have gone back to the old way of doing things, but Seattle's defense really did blow it this time.

 And that was the best thing that could have happened to our team. Really.

Yes, allowing a team to drive the field in under 30 seconds and take a game to overtime was the best thing that could have happened to the Hawks, you heard me. Because Seattle kept the governor off the offense yet again, and yet again Russell proved he is to be trusted fully and completely to do the right thing.

The whole team needed those two drives. The explosion of takeaways that has resulted is from those drives. Our defense had slowly gone from aggressive to conservative in approach, knowing how much our game plan depended on them not making any mistakes. In every game, they had to choose to either attack or control the offense, and the result was a run defense that was not aggressive and what felt like a defense in slow decline because they had been carrying the rest of the team.

In all games since, Seattles offense has found points quickly in the first quarter, and the defense has responded with formerly repressed aggression. All three phases of the game are working together as a single unit for the first time all year. Because of two drives on the road in Chicago.

Pete will always build around the run, so in a sense, that governor will always exist. But that is a very good thing; to attack through the air always is to sacrifice physicality for precision, and physicality has to be part of our identity. Physicality is play action, is the basis of run option, and is just plain vital to the attitude of our offensive line. The governor on the quarterback is gone though, and that is how the ugly little caterpillar has become something beautiful. Gone are notions of making the quarterback climb the pocket because the play calls for it. Gone are the notions that the West Coast Offense must have the quick slants that Russell will always struggle to complete. Gone are the notions of smoke screens as the best option to get the ball from quarterback to receiver.

Pete trusts Wilson. Now this is the NFL, and stuff happens, and Wilson will make more mistakes, maybe even some mistakes that cost us games. But Pete knows he won't make them from bad habits, won't make them from trying to make the impossible happen, and won't make them because the overall pressure of the game has gotten to him. I was afraid that in the future we would have to deal with a coach who struggled to give up control to his ever growing quarterback, and those fears have evaporated. That speaks volumes about Pete. For a "defensive" coach to give up control isn't easy, and Pete's near phobia of turnovers can't make it easy to surrender control. Pete preaches humble, and he walks it too, at least to the extent you can in that profession. I would compare what Pete is doing to a music teacher who realizes he has this one truly special student, and one day he realizes this student just doesn't need sheet music anymore.

The bandwagon is going to fill up fast. More casual fans than you, the reader of this too-long article, will now begin to annoy you as they make it harder and more expensive to get tickets. This board is going to be gaining fans who are more fans of players than the laundry they wear, and who enjoy success more than the process. Fans who are fickle when we lose, and just as quick to let a little adversity make them complain as they are to let a little success go to their heads. 

That's OK. You were here when the butterfly opened its wings.

17 Things I Love About the Jets Win

In no particular order.


1. Darell Bevell getting quicker on the adjustment trigger. It used to be that we wouldn't see any offensive adjustments until halftime. On Sunday, once it became clear that Russell Wilson was struggling with the defensive looks the Jets were throwing at him (for which no rookie should ever be condemned), Bevell moved immediately. He went back to the run to give Wilson some space, hoping to pull the Jets back up into the box. Then he started calling some screens to neutralize the pass rush. These proved to be effective moves, generated some momentum. Nimbleness on play-calling - definitely a big improvement.

2. Screens. If I'd told you in September that the Seahawks would soon not only improve at screens but make them a centerpiece of the offense behind a consistent Golden Tate, you'd have laughed at me. (Of course, if I'd told you back then that I would actually write another blog post one day, you'd have laughe at me too.) Ironic - our offensive line was actually better at executing screens today than it was at ordinary pass protection.

3. Golden Tate's touchdown dance. I'm sorry, but that little guy's exultation after his first-quarter touchdown just put a big grin on my face. Such a happy thing.

4. Richard Sherman. This guy is changing games. If he doesn't make the Pro Bowl, there is no justice in the world.

5. Russell Wilson's deep-ball placement. Another item on the long laundry list of things that Wilson has fixed in a hurry this year. The guy just puts that ball right where it needs to go. Sidney Rice is rewarding him for it, averaging 14 yards per reception on the year.

6. The Beast. I'm not sure he's gotten the memo that his back is hurting. What are they putting in those Skittles? Congratulations on your second 1,000-yard rushing season in a row, Marshawn Lynch.

7. Russell Wilson's demeanor. Part of it is that he's just not a hugely expressive guy - his face is a pretty set one, fairly reserved even when hollering into the phone at his draft party while his wife pulled a Mummy mouth next to him. But I'll bet the Seahawks' offense feels pretty safe under his direction on the field. One cool customer - unflappable and short memory.

8. Pete Carroll's QB grooming program. If you examine Wilson's progress carefully, you see a very intentional pattern of playbook development and decision-making training for Wilson. It's borne fruit. The Seahawks have kept themselves in games by minimizing turnovers, at the expense of boring a few fans along the way, but are now finding identity, chemistry, and favorite plays on offense. This program has been drawn up and executed brilliantly.

9. Bobby Wagner. With KJ Wright off the field today, Seattle's candidate for DROY was presumably handling all the defensive calls. Forget the 81 tackles stat - high tackle numbers could just mean that QB's aren't afraid to throw at you. What I like is his speed, reactions, and discipline. The tape backs him up even better than his stats do. Speaking of which...

10. LB coach Ken Norton. This guy has done real magic with our linebacking corps, and it showed up today with our depth as Mike Morgan made some positive plays in relief of KJ Wright and never gave up anything big. Both he and Wagner could have picked a tougher opponent to prove themselves against, sure, but still.

11. Having a bye next week. Was pleasantly surprised to see how many nicked-up players made it back onto the field this week, but this team has been wearing down and could use the week off. Lots of offensive experience to build on with the whiteboards at the VMAC.

12. That flea-flicker in the second quarter. No, it didn't quite result in a touchdown. But given Seattle's expertise in running the ball, and how many resources our opponents are devoting to stop it, I'd have thought we'd be seeing flea-flickers sooner.

13. Skill-position chemistry. Russell Wilson's receivers are really getting a feel for each other. Coordinating on scrambling drills, coming back for the ball, trusting Wilson's ball placement enough to stick with their routes.  Great stuff.

14. The read option. It's leading to some awesome Wilson scrambles for first downs. Very effective wrinkle.

15. NOT taking a knee in the final two minutes of the half. Gosh I hate that.

16. Zach Miller catching five passes. Much of that contract that has some fans wringing their hands is given to him for his run-blocking, which makes sense for a run-first team. But you love to see the guy Beastmoding his way to the first down marker and providing a security blanket down the seam.

17. Our playoff chances. Detroit has been shoved further down the schedule, leaving only Tampa and Green Bay to duke it out for wild-card spots with us. Only two truly mammoth games remain on Seattle's schedule, one at home (SF). The rest are against floundering teams, starting with Miami, whose quarterback threw three picks against a bottom-five passing defense today. At home.

A positive outlook on the Rams loss

UPDATED to include third-down efficiency in the "Ugly" section. Completely escaped my mind when I wrote this.


Seahawks fans were writing this team's loss narrative before the team even got on the plane to St. Louis. Short week. Trap game. Distraction from the Packers win. These are the things that will get labeled as the culprits for the loss, but it won't be accurate. The real reasons are the same ones that have been plaguing the team from Week 1: penalties, WR gaffes, red-zone struggles, Wilson's usual struggles...in a word, youth.

It's also important to acknowledge our assumptions that the Rams were still garbage and that Sam Bradford was still in his sophomore slump. That's the danger of carrying over assumptions from last year. It bites us all in the ass. The thinking was that we should have been sacking Bradford and picking his passes off all day, and that any failure to do so was an indictment of the Seahawks since, hey, Bradford's still a wreck. Instead, the Rams are good this year. Bradford is emerging, his chemistry with his receivers is showing up, and he finally has a veteran coach who gets him.

With the 49ers lambasting the Jets on the road today, the verdict is out: the NFC West is a tough, experienced, competitive division this year and might be that way for a long time.

All that said, this loss was the swallowable sort if we're looking purely at the game and not its playoff implications. We lost by six points and limited the Rams' touchdowns to a trick play. Those six points all came in a dome from a Rams kicker whose iron legs probably could have held up the Tacoma Narrows bridge. Against most teams, this game goes to overtime.

I actually saw quite a few improvements today from the Seahawks, signs of progress. They didn't lead to a win, but neither is this team a "train wreck" that has Pete Carroll on coaches' death row. We saw Seattle stick to its identity, play the run and underrated defense against a good game plan by the Rams, and in the end, lose because we couldn't deliver the final play. We might see a lot of that until our offense clicks.

Of course, I wasn't one of the ones thinking "Super Bowl Now", so my expectations - and thus my current state of mine - are different. If you wanted Seattle to contend this year, you might be frustrated. But this was a downer game for me too, because in all likelihood, Seattle lost the division today. It'll be hard to come back from a 0-2 division record.

I'm really starting to like the "optimism" thing, so I'mma start with the ugly.

The Hypocrisy of Goldengate

Hawkblogger spoke some immortal words today during a podcast.

There is only one way out of this, and Seahawks fans better buckle up, because whether or not the Seahawks did anything wrong, we are public enemy #1. Every play that goes against us, (in the country's opinion) we deserve it. Every time we lose, we deserve it. The only way out of this hole is to win the Super Bowl. The last time that the nation laughed at us and pointed fingers and disrespected this franchise, we caused an earthquake. That is going to have to happen again for the rest of the season, every single game. Seahawks fans better bring it, Seahawks players better bring it, and we'd better bring it until we bring the championship home this year, next year, and the year after. Until they can talk all they want about that one play and it will be a distant memory.

I walked into work Tuesday morning having not been able to watch the Packers game. First thing before attacking my skyscraper of ungraded papers, I opened NFL.com and checked the score. My mouth dropped open in astonished delight at the exact moment as one of my Algebra 2 students, a pack of five others right behind him, yanked open my door, leaned in, and without any greeting or preamble, hollered "Worst...call...ever." They know I'm a Twelve, and they wouldn't let go of the refrain all day: "The Seahawks? Seriously?" (Admittedly, this was mostly revenge from their being Cowboys fans.)

Every Twelve knows in his heart the phenomenon that Hawkblogger and I are describing here. The Seahawks are not the darlings of the NFL. We are not one of the media-market teams that bring ratings to the league's showcase games. We are not the team that the league would hold up as their paragon of talent and hardnosed professionalism. Our team is the red-headed stepchildren, and we share its status amongst fan circles.

For years, this status has taken passive voice as "Southern Alaska" as the team has wallowed in the muck of mediocrity with nobody feeling the need to pile on. Before that, it was "bullies of the basement" as we dominated the weak NFC West. It reached a passive-aggressive crescendo as the Seahawks trotted out to "Bittersweet Symphony" in Super Bowl XL and promptly got handed a yellow-colored, not-so-subtle memo as to which team's storylines the league thought more of. And once Pete Carroll the Rebel arrived, the laughter only increased.

So now that Golden Tate, Brandon Browner, Kam Chancellor and associates have finally taken a stand against the willful ignorance and literally body-slammed their way into the national spotlight, will the Seahawks ever be known as anything other than "The Ones Who Kept the Packers From Starting 2-1"?

I cannot believe the hypocrisy sweeping the nation over the Golden Tate touchdown. Forget the validity of the call for a moment. Where was this rending of garments and gnashing of teeth at the end of Super Bowl XL? I vividly remember the resounding snide dismissal from around the country: "If you wanted to win, there were plenty of dropped passes your team could have avoided. You deserved to lose. Deal with it."

Yet Aaron Rodgers, one of the league's best pressure-defeating, laser-accurate passers, so skilled that Matt Flynn (according to some Seahawks fans) has absorbed all his blitz-defeating ability by osmosis without even having to start more than twice - Rodgers is not given the same tough-love treatment. He's painted as a victim.

And he actually has a Super Bowl ring.

And you want me to believe that this is about the integrity of the game?

Horse-hockey.

This is about a tough loss to one of the nation's popular "identity" teams. This is about "blue-collar quarterback" Aaron Rodgers and one of the league's precious, ratings-grabbing, high-flying passing offenses getting clobbered by good, plain, old-fashioned defense (by the way, folks, the Seahawks are pretty good at that now). It's about one of the NFL's night-game regulars getting whalloped, offensively brought down to the level of the 2006 Browns in front of the whole country, by an underdog that pundits keep in a glass-enclosed case labeled "Break in Case of Need for Punchline".

Where was all this indignation last year when the real referees blew a fourth-quarter call on a Leon Washington touchdown return? That call would have lifted the Seahawks to a victory over...oh, right. Cleveland. Nobody gives a damn about that team. Forget that it could have changed Seattle's season.

Where would the New Yorker's hand-wringing have been had Aaron Rodgers been the one throwing that "game-winning interception"? Pretty sure it would be relegated almost purely to the 12th Man.

Where would Herm Edwards' disgust towards Pete Carroll have been had Golden Gate scored against the Rams? Non-existent.

Where was Clay Matthews all of Monday night? Same mysterious pocket universe that DeMarcus Ware and all my pencils and old socks went to, I'm guessing.

Where were all the national media writers during their class on journalistic integrity? Asleep on their desks, as evidenced by their gall in subtly accusing the Seahawks of "robbing" millions of willing gamblers who were dumb enough to put down their money on a sports game that they have zero control over. That right there, like Hawkblogger said, is the giveaway. That betrays the bias for me. There's no backpedaling from that. The hand has been tipped. The media officially has zero perspective on the whole thing.

So don't come to me mourning over the death of football's integrity, treating it like some whitewashed lamb led to the slaughter by some punk wide receiver who merely did what every wide receiver does on a hail mary. Or whatever such melodramatic crap you're trying to pull.

Don't pretend that the touchdown was the only bad call that determined the game.

Don't pretend this is the first time a team has been defeated by the zebras.

Don't accuse the Seahawks of dishonest arrogance for not shuffling up to the microphone with lowered heads and admitting that they "cheated".

Don't act as if Aaron Rodgers deserved to win after being reduced to panicky checkdowns and sent scrambling for his life for an entire half by a fourth-round Eagles castoff before hunkering down behind his running game just to survive the night. (Credit where due: he still made many excellent throws.)

And this to the players and media especially: DON'T...DON'T...DON'T EVEN HINT that this is the first time you've noticed how bad the replacement referees are, or how much impact it has. Don't you dare. Nobody else needed this game to figure that out, you Dallas-loving pack of hypocrites. This isn't about the situation reaching "critical mass", highlighting the bad call to hasten Ed Hochuli's return. Your double standard is so transparent that birds fly right into it.

You'll notice I haven't even addressed the call itself. I don't plan to. I don't need to. The intensity of the self-righteous outcry from the league, the media, and some of the players themselves...that's indication enough of what's really going on here. This isn't about football's honor. It's about the challenge to its reigning oligarchy. The Seahawks weren't "given a gift" when the referee threw up his hands in the "touchdown" motion. They played a hell of a game, walked up to the Packers and punched them in the mouth for the four quarters before that play, representing the numerous teams who are demonstrating to these elite quarterbacks that balance, defense, discipline, and toughness still matter in this league.

In the end, though, all my words are naught. Football fans have never been a receptive bunch. Neither have mediots. The only thing Seattle can do to earn respect (albeit grudging) is win, and win lots. We've stepped over the line now, made a claim. And we all saw this tipping point coming last year once the Legion of Boom started throwing people around and crowing about it on Twitter. We knew people would notice. We quieted the critics for a while during the Beastquake, but last year it was taken to a whole new level. All it took was the proper platform to announce our arrival on the block. It's here now, and we'll have to back up our smack every week, every day, just like Richard Sherman.

I'm not sure I agree with Hawkblogger that Seattle will be a contender this year. But I do agree with this: boy, are we going to catch hell if they aren't. Fair or not.

Packers Game a Test for the Entire Seahawks Team

My Seahawks fandom doesn't require me to blindly predict wins. If any fan chooses to be realistic and call the game as he sees it, then that's his right, and nobody else has anything to say about it.

So I'm going to step out and say that the Seahawks face an uphill battle on Monday when the Packers swing by for their round in the Clink. There is, in fact, potential for a Green Bay blowout. That would be far more heartbreaking than a close loss, an implication that we've overestimated the defense's growth so far and provided a get-well game for Green Bay's aerial attack.

Then again, what point is there in being a fan if there's not at least a mustard seed of optimism in his heart? Some folks seem to enjoy going against the grain, worshiping "rationality" almost to the point that others are justified in wondering if they have a pulse. Appearances aside, I'm not one of those guys. Is not hope a component of fandom? And so it is that I can say the Seahawks are better-equipped and closer to the ability to stop a truly elite quarterback than they ever have before.

17 Fistpumps: Seahawks Out-Team America's Team 27-7

* With Arizona proving its defensive chops against Tom Brady and his offense today, their 20-16 victory over the Seahawks last week is open to reinterpretation. It now looks less like an offensive turd on Seattle's part and more like a young team looking for its footing against an outstanding defense whose strengths matched up perfectly against our weaknesses. Take note: the NFC West is quickly becoming a defensive division.

* As Mike Sando eloquently put, this must-win victory game was stamped with Carroll's style. Physical running game, elite defense, special teams, efficient quarterbacking, turnovers from the opponent and only from them. Seattle's offense was listless until halftime, but the defense bucked up impressively on two long drives and outlasted Romo and an impressive array of receivers. Once Seattle finally re-committed to its running game, the ball started rolling and never stopped to give Romo more chances.

* We're definitely starting to see a "Good Russell Wilson" and "Bad Russell Wilson" emerge. Starting with the last major drive of the second quarter, the good half clicked in, started pulling down his passes and showing some poise and progressions. It was quite a noticeable difference. His collected demeanor after his touchdown to McCoy, and on the sidelines during the cruise to victory, were also striking. The guy is one cool customer. Lots of stuff to build on here.

* I hear some Cowboys fans weren't worried about the absence of NT Jay Ratliff, calling his replacement an upgrade. It didn't look like that today. Once the running game started coming online, Seattle's big boys were getting great push, including right guard JR Sweezy, last week's goat. John Moffitt, who rotated with Sweezy at RG, had a solid day as he helped FB Mike Robinson clear a lane on Marshawn Lynch's 36-yard run, then had a great pull block to seal the lane on his touchdown. I can't tell you how good it feels to see Seattle pushing D-lines back two yards again. Therapeutic after five long years of brick-wall impotence.

* Marshawn Lynch, for his part, doesn't appear to have lost a step. Here's hoping that he can stay in the business longer than most feature backs seem to these days. Robert Turbin is stepping right up beside him and also had a couple of nice checkdown receptions. I love the fact that we have two tough runners; it'll keep the offense's job easy if one of them suffers injury.

* It might have taken a little while, but TE Anthony McCoy is finally promising to join the long list of late-round picks that Seattle has turned into big contributors. The chemistry with Wilson is definitely there. Rob Staton at Seahawks Draft Blog was always calling McCoy a borderline first-round talent who dropped because of behavior concerns.

* Also hinting at emergence is Golden Tate, finally. He came up with a couple key plays, a big jailbreak catch for 20 yards and a sandlot reception in the red zone to set up Lynch's game-sealing touchdown jaunt. He might be a good match with a smart improvisor (is this a word?) like Wilson.

* Brandon Browner gave up a touchdown on his weekly whiff against a double-move. It's a frustrating tendency, but dang it, he just never stops coming up with interceptions to win us over again.

* The pass rush deserves more credit that it's getting. Yeah, we gave up a lot of scrambling, fourth-read conversions on third down, but Tony Romo is like that. Slippery and a brilliant artist on the run. Our guys were still all over him much of the time and had several very-near sacks. Result: Dallas scores one touchdown on blown coverage and never reaches the red zone.

* Seattle's coverage rarely surrendered easy receptions and often forced Romo to extend plays, giving our pass rush time. Yeah, Romo was up to the challenge and Jason Witten made a glaring easy drop late in the second, but that's Pete's defensive formula - coverage helping pass rush as well as vice versa. (Saw a Cowboys fan call Witten "the new TO". Tee hee.) To wit: Alan Branch, Bobby Wagner, Chris Clemons, Jason Jones, Bruce Irvin, and Chris Maragos combined for 6 QB hits. And between Clemons, KJ Wright (awesome day), Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman (almost his second pick), and Brandon Browner (his first pick), Seattle defensed seven passes (though they're probably closing in on the NFL record for dropped interceptions). Thanks to Adam Wright for those bits.

* Even so, a lot of these good things seem to wait until we blitz. Once Bradley backed off the aggression in the second quarter, Romo seemed happier, at least to a degree. Three-man rushes weren't a good answer for that strong a receiving group.

* Replacement refs suck wastewater, no matter whom you're rooting for.

* The offensive line remains very touchy with the penalties. Is this the sign of a young, raw team, or a byproduct of Cable's nasty physicality that will be hard to overcome?

* I'm having a hard time shaking the feeling that this team is very slow to start. Pete preaches finishing well, but that's not always feasible in this league and certainly won't be in Green Bay. If Pete wants to keep the running game in his toolbox at all times, this team had better improve in the first half.

* Props to Frank Omiyale. Didn't look like the pinball flag we expected against DeMarcus Ware. Maybe Tom Cable does know what he's doing!

* Stifling a playmaker like DeMarco Murray is a big credit to our linebacking corps.

* At this rate, by the time Pete Carroll is done as head coach, there will be enough .GIFs of devastating pancake-blocks by Seahawks on both sides of the ball to fill up the Internet.

On to Green Bay!

Alternative Theories to "Darell Bevell Is An Idiot"

When it comes to football, there's usually more than one interpretation for almost everything. On Sunday against Arizona, Seahawks fans saw offensive struggles that are being popularly chalked up to poor planning. Offensive coordinator Darell Bevell is getting a lot of flak for this (and a generous sprinkling of insults), but that's pretty easy. Good game plans can look bad when executed poorly. Whether Bevell cooked up an inadequate game plan is difficult to tell, because the lurking factor is Seattle's roughshod execution in every facet of the offense except the running game.

The general belief is that Seattle didn't do enough to counteract Arizona's pass rush, that Bevell failed to utilize common pressure-neutralizing plays like screens, slants, outlets, and more emphasis on the tight end. The conclusion is that Bevell was just clueless, despite the fact that we've seen such features from him before.

The unspoken assumption that you might not have realized you're carrying: that all of Seattle's offensive players can handle those plays. That a bunch of rookies and new signings were perfectly trained, healthy, in sync, and ready to execute every facet of Seattle's playbook, just waiting on the sidelines for the call, while an oblivious Bevell merrily skipped along waving a gameplan that made the game as hard on Wilson and the interior line as possible.

Week 1 Reaction: No Apocalypse Now

Someone at Fieldgulls said it best:

Week 1 Commandment #1:

Neither shalt thou get over-excited over a win or overly disappointed by a loss. Week 1 is the most anomaly filled day in all of sports. (King James emphasis mine, because I can.)

Today is a comedown day for Seahawks fans. I had almost forgotten just how nasty and vitriolic we football fans can be after a loss. And I'd forgotten it because the 12th Man just wasn't very nasty last year. Not like this. My memory of 2011 was of muted, resigned, relatively tranquil reactions when the Seahawks lost, not the sarcastic poo-flinging that we're seeing right now.

Why the difference? My fellow bloggers have already nailed it - expectations. Your therapist will tell you that your emotions are dependent mostly on your goals. In 2011, people stopped hoping as soon as Tarvaris Jackson signed. Hence, muted reactions. It was a development season, a punted year.

This year, Russell Wilson's preseason polish had folks thinking they could see the light at the end of the rebuild tunnel. He faced a talented starting Kansas City defense that did not play the degree of sandlot football that some claim, and showed far more veteran polish that the typical preseason-disaster-in-waiting who just stares from the pocket like a rock and sidearms to wide-open guys. There was some real promise there. So the Arizona game was supposed to be the beginning of the get-well process - I myself mistakenly dubbed it "Week 5 of the preseason".

Here's what happened - Seattle started the season against a tougher defense than Kansas City, assured itself a heavy dose of blitzing by starting a rookie QB(!!!!!) against a well-respected NFL defensive coordinator, struggled in its very first game(!!!!!) on the road(!!!!!), and was still a Braylon Edwards drop(!!!!!) from winning.

Yes, that's what happened. Go back and look at the score. It was 20-16, not 120-16. You wouldn't know that from the current meltdown. The exclamation marks indicate things that aren't supposed to shock you.

Some will go "a loss is still a loss". Well, no, it's not. Not for this fan. I barely care about this season. I've never seen 2012 as a contention year, haven't since Pete Carroll arrived. Maybe I'll be surprised, but my expectations were limited from the outset. That puts me in the minority, but there it is. Championships take time to build. Pass rushes and star quarterbacks are the biggest examples of this, and we only just got those (maybe). And I'm not part of the camp that believes that teams can win Super Bowls with running and defense against a league dominated by Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Drew Brees. In my opinion, this team's Super Bowl window absolutely does not open until 2013 at the very earliest.

For me, the stakes on Sunday were still developmental. I wanted to see Russell Wilson play like a rookie Peyton Manning instead of a rookie David Greene (there's a difference); he did. He threw several winning touchdowns that got dropped, bought at least two first downs with his feet that I remember, and never once folded or lost composure. His ball placement was erratic but (FAINT PRAISE ALERT) remains a world improved from Tarvaris Jackson. Yeah, he "played like a rookie", but that current popular phrase could mean a million different things. Wilson looked nowhere near as primitive as that blunt instrument that's starting in Miami.

And no, I'm not convinced that Matt Flynn would have done any better. Despite his reputation for handling blitzes well in Green Bay, Flynn looked slow with his reads and downright sack-prone in a full game's worth of preseason snaps. It's not hard to provide a reason why - adjustment to much worse receivers on a differently-called offense. My guess: Flynn would have been destroyed behind that O-line.

I wanted to see our running game pick up from 2011 without missing a beat; it did. I wanted to see our defense blanket Larry Fitzgerald and stymie our QB into sacks; it did, when instructed to. I wanted to see our pass rush tearing out the interior of Arizona's line and burying John Skelton in three hundred pounds of sweaty man.

Okay, so that last part blew chunks. That's really what worried me most. While everyone else was salivating and over-prognosticating Wilson's rookie season, I was excited about our defense growing into the ability to bring OTHER quarterbacks down to Wilson's level. I really hoped that this year's pass rush would find its way.

That clearly hasn't happened yet. No surprise - Game 1. Irvin is getting no better results than a lighter Lawrence Jackson, and actually reminds me of said now-Lion in his reliance on an ineffective bullrush. Chris Clemons was not his usual self against an Arizona tackle situation that had deteriorated to Kyle Williams territory, although much of that was down to better pass scheming on Arizona's part. Alan Branch still isn't showing me the promise he apparently showed everyone else last season, and Jason Jones isn't yet an improvement.

But it's only Week 1. I get the distinct feeling that despite our hopes, Pete Carroll was still treating Week 1 as a preseason game. There was a bit of an experimental feel to it, given the narrow play-calling and tendencies (either that, or Darell Bevell really is an oaf). I don't agree with the experimental approach, but Pete has always shown an element of "growing into the season" in Seattle. No doubt there are elements of this going on, whether we like it or not.

We have a few players waiting in the wings, yet to emerge. John Moffitt will hopefully be back soon, and behind him, James Carpenter. Golden Tate will also return, to the delight of those who think another two-catches-a-game WR will change things. If the Jones experiment doesn't work out, we have another promising project in Jaye Howard. Doug Baldwin has yet to return to full strength.

As far as Wilson, I'm going to take great comfort in the fact that he was one dropped pass from winning. Pete Carroll has never been ignorant of the risk of starting a rookie. Is he willing to trade a few losses for the sake of more quickly building the experience of the QB with more upside? Are fans willing to watch this?

Besides, let's be honest: if Braylon Edwards makes that TD catch, the tone around here would be much different and we all know it. It'd be about how Wilson "did enough to win an ugly game", and you wouldn't see nearly the intensity of the criticism. The ultimate setter of tone, the emotional filter through which we critique, is always whether we win or lose. There'd be the few isolated worriers and naysayers, but they'd get drowned out.

This reaction isn't about where the team is. It's about where we are. This is about losing. We don't like to lose. We shouldn't. But progress is happening, folks. It may not come on our schedule, but it is coming.