Seahawks Offseason Begins Now: Reasons for Hope

The Seahawks offseason begins earlier than we wanted, but take heart, Seahawks fans, the Pete Carroll-Russell Wilson era is far from over.

It’s hard to win a football game in the NFL, much less a playoff game. Only five minutes into the Divisional round in Carolina against the 15-1 Panthers, the Seahawks allowed two quick scores on two extremely uncharacteristic plays: a 59-yard run by Jonathan Stewart on the first offensive snap for Carolina, and a pick-six thrown by Russell Wilson. Before I could even find parking near the sports bar I watch all the games at, the Hawks were down two scores to a confident, talented, well-coached team playing at home.

Face it, we can’t beat the Panthers every year in the playoffs. It seems like the road to the Super Bowl each year involves a grudge match with Carolina, fueling a budding rivalry between two NFC powerhouses. This time, the Panthers were a truly dominant version of the same team the Hawks handled in the Divisional round last year. The Panthers won 15 of their 16 regular season games by running the ball well, playing excellent defense, and Newton making the throws he has to make. We saw all of those traits from them on Sunday.

Pete Carroll called the Divisional round game a “microcosm of the season.” Truer words have yet to be spoken. The Hawks started slow, scuffled, looked awful, then suddenly turned into a juggernaut in the second half. Let’s remember how terrible the team looked in the first half of this game and the first half of the season. They couldn’t block any pass rushers. Russell Wilson wasn’t his normally efficient self. The running game was virtually nonexistent. Then, true to Carroll’s words, Tyler Lockett returns the opening kickoff of the second half 50 yards, leading to a touchdown, and the furious comeback began.

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There are all kinds of positives to take away from the game even if the final score wasn’t one of them. Ron Rivera and the Panthers knew that Russell Wilson would have to throw on almost every down if the Seahawks were going to make any dent in the 31-point deficit they found themselves facing. Despite the Panthers’ defensive linemen taking their best shots at a beleaguered Seahawks offensive line, Wilson found ways to bring his team to within a touchdown and an onside kick attempt.

Wilson is the reason Hawks fans get up in the morning after a tough loss. He was unflappable for four quarters. With the vaunted defense of the Panthers keying in on stopping the pass the entire second half, Russell basically put up 24 points single-handedly. (I suppose six of those points were put up by Steven Hauschka technically.) The Seahawks had to abandon the run and get a stop on defense every time the Panthers touched the ball. They did, and even if they fell one early pick-six short, the result is that you should never sleep on this Seahawks team or the brand of football that Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson have built over the past four years.

This was a season in which the Seahawks didn’t dominate wire to wire. Injuries, a tough schedule, holdouts, and the pesky St. Louis Rams placed them in a difficult situation heading into the playoffs this year. The Panthers were ready for them at home, yet because of the strength, leadership, courage, and heart of Wilson and company, the Hawks clawed their way back into the game and forced it to hinge on a clutch onside kick recovery. We have a great coach. We have a franchise quarterback. And we have one of the best defenses in NFL history. We’ll see you next year, Carolina.

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