With their astonishing win over Green Bay (which was astonishing in the manner in which they won, not merely that they won) in the NFC Championship Game, Seattle joins some rather rare company.
Perhaps you might hear that going to consecutive Super Bowls isn’t that big of a deal. And sure, that it has now happened 16 times in the 48 years of the Super Bowl era (an average of once every 3 years).
But consider this: in the first 32 years of the Super Bowl Era (1967-1999), teams appeared in back to back Super Bowls 13 times. In the 16 years since, only one team (New England) other than Seattle has made it back in consecutive years, and only 6 teams (Pittsburgh twice) have ever won it the year previously and then found a way to get all the way back and win it a second time. Only Miami (3) and Buffalo (4) have ever appeared in at least three straight, but no team has ever won three in a row.
The point is, if it hasn’t been bludgeoned in to your head by now, is that getting back is big. It does not happen often anymore even if it was relatively common at one point in time many years ago. Now, getting back and winning a second time, well, that’s several notches higher. It is special, it is super, and point of fact, and so is Seattle.
Seattle has not been the “circled win” they seem to be made out to be by the general public, save for their last two super seasons. This is a team that while they had three head coaches and two general managers come and go in the last decade, also had winning records in 6 of the last 10 seasons, made the playoffs in 7 of 10, won at least one playoff game in all seven postseason appearances, as well as earned their way in to three Super Bowls. Every team has had dark periods, been labelled a “losing team”, but few have enjoyed more recent success than Seattle. And yet they’ll never tell you getting respect is enough, because that’s not what they’re after. Despite what you see and hear, they like it when people underestimate them.
And just how good is their defense? How about historically good. At this time last season, I wrote that the Seahawks hadn’t done enough to be in the “greatest defense of all time” discussion. Well, I was wrong then and they aren’t done proving me wrong. In 2014, the Seahawks became the firs team since the 1969-71 Minnesota Vikings to lead the league in scoring defense three consecutive years. It’s also worth noting that none of the top ranked defensive units in the Super Bowl era ever helped their team win back to back titles while also leading the league in defense both years.
It’s not all about the defense, however, even if the offense is limping their way in to modern thinking. In a time in which teams are passing more than ever before, Seattle is bringing a 1980’s toughness back to the table. They have been among the worst passing teams the last three seasons, yet have been in the top 4 in terms of rushing yards, and have been among the top two teams in the league in terms of rushing attempts. And for as much as we point out how pass-happy the league has become and how rules heavily favor the offense, we forget to applaud the defense that is holding teams to an average of 185.6 yards per game.
Any coach worth his salt will tell you that holding on to the ball is critical, even though new emphasis is being placed on play count with up-tempo, no-huddle offenses. Seattle is probably irritating every “new-school” coach trying to help put legs underneath the new way of doing things, as they placed 4th, 15th, and 3rd in the last three seasons in average time of possession, and were in the basement or in the bottom half of the league in play count during the same period, and finished in the top ten in scoring the last three years. They run the ball, drain the clock, get crucial first downs, and finish drives with points, thereby drastically reducing your chances to get the ball back and have time to do anything with it. That is, of course assuming they give the ball back at all, as this team has been in the top 5 or better at turnover differential the last three years. They take care of business, take care of the football, and they take care of their opponents.
Seattle’s coach Pete Carroll leads this team in the rainy northwest with sun-soaked skin, and an “aw shucks” smile on his face for four quarters, often celebrating as much or more than his players. It’s not because he’s a showoff or arrogant or anything like that, he just simply loves this game, and loves it even more when his guys do what he knows they’re capable of. Playing against them when they’re at the top of their game can be and usually is mentally and physically draining to the point of exhaustion, and the results speak for themselves: Three straight seasons with at least 11 wins, two straight seasons as the number one seed in the playoffs, two straight trips to the Super Bowl, and a 26-2 home record over the last three seasons, including the postseason.
It really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that this team has been this successful, or that they’re back for Super Bowl seconds after feasting on Denver last year, or that they will probably win their second straight title after spending the majority of their first 39 years in the league just trying to survive. But perhaps the way in which this team was assembled, is what makes them great.
The defense is full of great players, but only two (Earl Thomas & Bruce Irvin) were selected in the first round of the draft, leaving Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Byron Maxwell, and Jeremy Lane as late round gems. Bobby Wagner was taken in the second round, Brandon Mebane and Cliff Avril in the third, KJ Wright in the 4th, and Malcolm Smith in the 7th round. Kicker Steven Hauschka went undrafted and bounced around 6 professional teams before landing in Seattle and becoming one of the most accurate kickers in the league. On offense, there are only three first round picks and they’re all offensive linemen, while the rest of the offense was either taken in the mid to late rounds, or not drafted at all. Russell Wilson was a third round steal, Marshawn Lynch was once the number 12 overall pick, but was brought to Seattle for a 4th and 5th rounder after 3-1/2 disappointing seasons in Buffalo and Doug Baldwin and Jermaine Kearse didn’t get drafted at all. They’re not a team rallying around a misfit athlete with freakish ability like some teams in the past and present, they’re a team of perceived misfits using one another as a rallying cry, and Carroll, who was once a misfit himself, is usually the one leading the charge in to battle.
That perceived disrespect, that lack of recognition, that chip on each of their shoulders, is what drives them, and what brings them closer together no matter what happens on the outside. They’re a band of battle-born brothers trying to become a team for the history books, that’s something everyone can relate to, understand, and respect.
Now, teams are just trying to survive against them. Now, teams are just trying to prove that they deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the defending champions. Now, teams are trying to emulate what they are doing in hopes of getting similar results.
You may not like these Seahawks. Sure, they might be brash, they might be too outspoken, and you may not like the way they speak to the media or in some cases, don’t speak to the media. So what?? Didn’t the 1985 Bears make their own music video on their way to the Super Bowl? That doesn’t stop anyone these days from praising them as one of the greatest teams of all time, even if they though poorly of the move at the time. Perception is reality, and no matter what you see when you look at this band of teammates, you can’t deny one, incontrovertible fact:
They’re champions and they’re winners, no matter what they do from here on out. But, if they win next Sunday to become just the 7th team in NFL lore to do so in the Super Bowl Era, we’ll remember them as not just winners or champions. We will remember them as historically great, and that is what this team is always after. Like those Bears, they don’t just want to haunt your dreams, they want to haunt the football film and dreams of you and your children, and your children’s, children’s, children.
And they’ll do it. If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that these guys will pull off the unlikely, destroy what we know of the impossible, and look like some difficult to explain Christopher Nolan movie plot while they’re at it. It’s them against the world, they don’t care if you believe in them, and they’re going to beat you and beat you their way, sportsmanship and rules be damned, and that’s exactly how they’d like the history books to remember them if and when they write about their run to the Mount Rushmore of the NFL.
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