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Optimizing Optimism: Thoughts on the Seahawks Season and Next Year

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Optimizing Optimism

Everyone got their hearts ripped out Sunday.

The Seahawks lost a really tough game.

I’ll admit, I thought the game was at one o’clock in my time zone. I didn’t realize it was on until I saw a tweet about “a nice throw” by Russell Wilson. A couple minutes and choice-y swear words later I turned on the TV to see Wilson score on a rushing touchdown to cut it to a 13-point game. Obviously you know the rest. We lost to Atlanta, but there are a ton of things to take from this. Maybe it isn’t the end of the world.

  • Atlanta was the number-one seed in the playoffs folks. They lost three games by an average of six points, and two of those losses were by only four. Only one loss was at home. Atlanta is really good (offensively.) This is a huge step up from the team’s last playoff appearance. Chicago was a two seed, and we had as much of a chance of winning as the Kings do of staying in Sacramento. A long shot. We did make it close with the Bears, but that was never our game to win. This was different. Yeah, we didn’t play up to par in the first half, but we killed the Falcons in the second half. If the Seahawks had played with half that much gusto and what not in the first half we would be trash talking the 49ers this week. (Inevitably we still are. How ridiculous is Kapernicking? So ridiculous that it’s a rip off.)
  • Yes, it probably hurt more knowing that we had a legitimate shot at the Super Bowl to lose this game than if we lost it as a Cinderella-Wild Card, but the point is that we were a legitimate Super Bowl contender who took the number-one seed in our conference (who, by the way, easily could have been 16-0) to the last second and went on a three-week scoring rampage with a rookie quarterback. I know Russell Wilson is more than most and/or all rookies, but the fact that this is his basement, imagine what his ceiling is. More so, this team’s ceiling could be very, very high. Chris Clemons, 31, and Marcus Trufant, 32, are the only non-specialists, major contributors over 30. In fact, Heath Farewell, who in his own right is a fantastic special teams player, defensive end Patrick Chukwurah, punter Jon Ryan and stand-in kicker Ryan Longwell are the only guys over 30 on the entire roster. This team has a very high ceiling, and to put it in Pete Carroll’s words, “Can be really cool for us in the future.”
  • Did I mention how good Russell Wilson is? Not only did he set a franchise and NFL record for passing yards in a playoff game with 385 (WHATTTT!?!?!), but he also threw for 3,118 as a rookie as well as running for 489 yards. I can’t stress enough, he is a rookie. Imagine him in three years. (I believe, if this were twitter,  #scary would be appropriate.)
  • Pete Carroll had 15 wins (counting the playoffs) in his first two years. He had 13 this year (again counting playoffs) alone. He had 19 losses over that span (first two years) and less than a third of that number (six, again, counting playoffs) this year. This is a tremendous step up for Carroll and the team. It finally seems like he has the personnel he wants to run the kind of team he needs to win. And he is winning.

The Seahawks have nothing to be ashamed about this year. Yes, they lost and that was heart breaking, but I think most people thought this would be another 7-9 transition year with Matt Flynn as Tavaris Jackson 2.0 in terms of place-holding for the TBD “franchise QB.” But we found Wilson; we found an elite defense (Seriously, best in the league. Period.) We found a lot of things to be proud of this year that might not have shown themselves in a few more years instead. The Seahawks are completely ahead of the curve, and they should be a Super Bowl contender for at least a decade. Count on it.

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What We Learned From the Seahawks’ 24-14 Win Over the Washington Redskins

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  • Win-Win-Win. The Seahawks won for the first time on the road in the playoffs since 1983. That’s 13 years before I was born. Not to try and make people feel old, but it’s all just very surprising that the team hasn’t won on the road since then. The Seahawks also obviously won the game, so that accounts for a third of the win-win-win. Got that out of the way. The third win is that not only is it the Seahawks’ first win on the road in the playoffs since 1983 (think about that for a minute, Seattle didn’t win on the road at all in the 90’s or 2000’s. That’s two decades without a road playoff win,) but it was also the Seahawks’ first road win in the NFC ever. (They were in the AFC in the 80’s.) That’s a pretty absurd stat for a team that made the playoffs four years in a row from ’04-’07 and five years total in the 2000’s.
  • Turn Away If You Are Horrified By Gruesome Incidents. (This paragraph was almost one. Seriously, it was.)
  • The Kick(er) is Good? Steven Hauschka was placed on injured reserve due to a left calf injury. Cue Ryan Longwell sprinting out of the tunnel to Rock the Casbah. (You’re right, that musical reference doesn’t make any sense.)
  • With the Pushing and the Shoving and the Whole Thing. Redskins offensive tackle Trent Williams pushed/punched Seahawks’ cornerback Richard Sherman in the face after the game. I know that it’s an emotional game in the playoffs, win or go home and all that stuff, but seriously? What compelled Williams to do that? I just have one question for him, are you seriously that mad…bro?
  • Marshawn Lynch Really Likes Making Big Plays in the Playoffs. Anybody remember Marshawn Lynch make the Saints’ defense look like a bunch of crash test dummies trying to tackle? Well, Beast Mode was at it again on Sunday, scooping up a rare Russell Wilson fumble and taking it 21 yards on a play that could have easily resulted in the Redskins recovering. Did I mention the Seahawks were down 14-0 at the time?
  • I am Very, Very, Very Sorry Washington Redskins. Here’s a number, the last time three times the Redskins have made the playoffs they have played the Seahawks. Not surprisingly, the ‘Skins have lost all three games. It also doesn’t help when the team’s respective quarterbacks were an older Mark Brunell, an injured RGIII and Todd Collins.

So, that’s what I learned on Sunday. What exactly did you guys learn about the game? Tell me in the comments section below if I missed anything important.