As NBC said, biggest playoff upset (by Vegas line) since the Patriots beat the Rams in the Super Bowl. What. A. Game!
As I'm not a Seahawks insider, I have no idea what vision Pete Carroll had for this team when he took the job, or just before week 1. But there were so many games this season I was hunched over my computer watching them get blown out (as they did in all 9 of their losses), and thinking, "This can't be what he envisioned." But today, I think we got a little bit of a glimpse.
Seattle didn't have a 100-yard rusher in a game all season long. Marshawn Lynch ran for 131 yards today, including a 67 yard touchdown run where he broke about 146 tackles and embodied his nickname: Beast Mode.
Matt Hasselbeck threw for 12 touchdowns all year, and never more than 2 in a game. He threw for 4 today. And he had his highest rated game of the season (113.0). The interception? Not his fault, so it could have been higher.
Seattle's defense was victimized all season by any halfway decent offense they faced. Yeah, they were picked apart a bunch by Drew Brees (404 yards, 2 TDs) and gave up almost 4 yards per carry to a (cue Bill Walton voice) TERRRRRR-IBLE running back (former Seahawk Julius Jones), but they made enough big plays to hold on. Not many sacks (I think I counted 1), but enough pressure on Brees to force some key incompletions to end some drives.
Were they perfect? Heck no. But this was by far the best offensive performance of the season and it wasn't close.
And for all the gruff I've given Matthew Hasslebeck, I am delighted to be eating crow right now. I thought (and said) that Whitehurst gave this team the best chance to win. I couldn't have been more wrong. This was vintage Hasselbeck. Did some...okay, all of his deep throws look like wounded ducks? Oh yeah. But they were expertly, perfectly placed wounded ducks. Does this mean Seattle should bring him back next year? I'm not going there. I just want to enjoy a beautiful playoff win for my team, made possible by one of the better performances of Matthew's career. And for a guy who has done so much for the Seahawks organization, I am thrilled that, no matter what happens next weekend, we will always have this as a sendoff if this is his last season as a Seahawk. I said last week that it's never fun watching a "hero" from your team's past fall apart before your eyes. It's a whole barrel of fun watching said past "hero" reach into his bag of tricks for one more vintage performance.
The best games as a fan are those that a) you didn't expect your team to win, and b) never really let you get too comfortable. Even though you prefer the easy, 20 point blowout wins, these are the games that stay with you as a fan. These are the games that allow you to stick with your guys when they break your heart in game after game, or fade from relevance for years at a time. These are the types of games that make it all worth it.
And I now have at least 7 more days to be excited about my team in the present, and to listen to the media talk about my team with begrudging respect to go with their jokes and derision.
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