Seahawks Not Only Unlikely Playoff Team, They Could Be Unlikely Winners

SEATTLE – They hoisted a massive 12th Man flag atop the Space Needle here Friday, the Seattle mayor and the captain of The Wizard on the TV show "Deadliest Catch" playfully bantering like a couple of deck hands as they battled both a slight wind and reporters desperate for some sort of drama.

Soon the flag was flapping, and the cameras caught everyone smiling, and then it was like, what next? The cafes were filled with locals sipping lattes and staring bleary-eyed at their iPads and down on the wharf you could tell by the pungent smell it was nearly closing time, and if you didn't know better, if you perhaps thought the football season came to an inglorious end when the local team finished the regular season 7-9, you'd be excused for thinking it was just another blah eve to another gloomy winter weekend.

Has it only been five years since the Seahawks were heralded for glories previously unheard of in these parts? That was some ride, ending only when the Pittsburgh Steelers -- accompanied by a few fellas in striped shirts, if you go by what they still allege around here – beat Seattle in Super Bowl XL. Back then the months of December and January were choked with all things Hawks, as this fine town finally crept into winner's territory.

Seattle's back in the NFL playoffs again, never mind cries from the rest of the nation that the Seahawks might as well abscond and leave the postseason to those who truly deserve it. Like, you know, a team with a winning record. Hey, .500 would do, gripe the curmudgeons who'd rather rip up the rules than see maybe, just maybe, the chance of a Butler or Buster Douglas kind of upset.
Perhaps the raining negativity is why the scene leading up to Saturday's NFC wild-card game against the New Orleans Saints has been, well, not much of a scene at all. This traveling reporter has witnessed more scene at a Yankees-Mariners tiff in August. Everyone east of the Cascades mocks the first team in NFL history to dive bomb into the playoffs with a losing record; out here they're either sheepish about it, defensive of it, or shrugging at it.

"It's kind of quiet," said running back Leon Washington who, after four seasons with the New York Jets, went from asylum to serenity via a trade to Seattle. "We're not the top story on TV or in newspapers like we were in New York. But that can be a good thing. You don't see the entire city wearing our jerseys or screaming stuff out of their cars. It's calm here. I like that."

There's an upside to all the blasé. The Seahawks won't get tarred and coaled if they do the highly expected and lose to the defending champions. The Saints come limping in without two of their top running backs, Pierre Thomas and Chris Ivory, while receiver Marques Colston and tight end Jeremy Shockey also nurse injuries. The Saints cruised with home-field advantage last season but they are 0-3 in away playoff games, their last failed bid coming at glacial Soldier Field in the 2006 season's NFC title game.

And still New Orleans is favored by 10 1/2 points. On the road. In a stadium so obnoxiously loud, the visiting team must communicate by hand signals.

"This is an opportunity for our organization to do something we haven't done before," said Saints quarterback Drew Brees, last year's Super Bowl MVP.

Despite all that ails the Saints, Brees' cheery optimism flows not just from New Orleans' 11-5 season, but from the simple fact that Seattle has all sorts of issues. The Seahawks have trouble running the ball, the starting quarterback missed last Sunday with an injured tush, the offense is ranked No. 28 out of 32 teams, the defense is No. 27 in yards allowed and, not that it has much bearing, but this is the team that only a few weeks ago got blown to pieces by the San Francisco 49ers.

Cynics might find that last one the most awful of the awful.

Cynics might also be licking their lips at next season's Seahawks-49ers clash, now that Jim Harbaugh has taken the San Francisco job. "What's your deal?" has taken on a whole 'nother spin.

As expected, Matt Hasselbeck, the quarterback whose strained muscles in his left hip and buttocks prevented him from playing in last Sunday's division-clinching victory over the St. Louis Rams, will start against the Saints. He's been a legend in these parts nearly as long as Kick-is-om-lo, so pardon Hasselbeck if he gets a little prickly from all the Hawks-bashing.

"Look at this," he cracked Thursday, upon surveying the media scrum. "I didn't know you guys covered the CFL."

Someone wanted to know if the Seahawks should apologize for being in the playoffs with a 7-9 record. "Apologize to who?" he wondered, incredulously. "No, I'm not going to apologize for that."

Do the Seahawks have an advantage since all the pressure falls on the Saints? Hasselbeck's grin was wise and sneaky. "We're really, really pumped up, fired up, excited, jacked to play this game. We think it's very cool. I don't know how they feel. Maybe they're bummed that they don't have a bye and they've got to fly seven hours to southern Alaska," he said.

"We're 0-0 right now that's where my head's at," he added, and it was clear the quarterback had caught the same fever that's struck his coach, Pete Carroll.

"It's kind of funny because Pete always says, 'Hey, I don't care who they bring in here - they could bring in the world champs!'" Hasselbeck said "And the irony is, they really are bringing in the world champs."
"It's kind of funny because Pete always says, 'Hey, I don't care who they bring in here -- they could bring in the world champs!. And the irony is, they really are bringing in the world champs."
- Seahawks QB Matt Hasselbeck
The Seahawks somersaulted backward into the postseason, losing by spectacular margins, four of their wins coming against the carcass that is the NFC West, finishing the season a scorching 3-7 -- and still there stood Carroll last Sunday after the Seahawks earned not just a playoff berth, but home field advantage, claiming the win was for "the little people." You know, like Texas Christian, Rose Bowl winners.

Yep, he compared these Seahawks to undefeated TCU. Little people, all of them.

Since his well-timed skedaddle from USC, Carroll and general manager John Schneider have rearranged the Seattle roster with blistering alacrity, 277 official transactions since last January, players coming and going so often, there's hardly time to swap name plates above lockers. But massive rebuilding projects tend to not bring out the inner pompoms.

Carroll's boundless enthusiasm hasn't quite captured the hearts of Seattle the way Mike Holmgren's team once did, but Carroll seems to have convinced his players he can bend wooden spoons with a smile. That's as difficult as getting a wild card team with a losing record to beat the defending champions, but it's hard not to be charmed by the power of Carroll.

"He reminded us that something like six of the last eight wild-card games were won by the team with the worse record," Washington said. "We're only thinking positive."

Such as: Hasselbeck threw for 366 yards in New Orleans Nov. 21, more yards against a Saints defense than any other quarterback this season. The Hawks had five scoring drives that day, four ending in field goals. Meanwhile, the Saints scored touchdowns on five straight possessions. Brees was a whiz on third down, converting 9-of-10. Seattle lost.

Saturday's unexpected (and, to the football cognoscenti, unwanted) rematch at Qwest Field will be insanely noisy, as the storied 12th Man tries to recreate the atmosphere from the 2005 run to the Super Bowl. The forecast calls for mush – light snow mixing with rain. The Saints made the mistake of practicing indoors all week before their 2006 NFC title game in Chicago. Coach Sean Payton won't say if his players are better acclimated this time, maybe fitted for earplugs or other devices to help hear snap counts and drown out chaos.

"We've got noise in our lunch room, we've got noise in the locker room, the training room," Payton joked this week. "We've got crowd noise. We've got crowd noise in our meetings.

"When you get to travel and you're in the league long enough, there are a few places that you say when you leave, 'Man, that's a great environment.' And clearly Qwest and Seattle and their fan base is pretty impressive."

Imagine if the Seahawks pull this off. Isn't that why we pay attention to sports, to see the unimaginable?