Prime time!

If you're not psyched about this Sunday's game, you're not a Seahawks diehard.

Every serious fan feels disappointed about how this season has gone for Seattle. It is understandable to feel betrayed by the bad personnel decisions, the poor coaching, and the lack of effort on the field that has led the team to its anemic 6-9 record.

We all wish the season had gone better.

However, the fact remains:

On Sunday night, the Seahawks get to play a home game in prime time for the division title.

Some faint-hearted fans are not on board.

Incredibly, a Seattle Times poll found that a majority of readers want the Seahawks to lose this game. Evidently, a majority of Times poll respondents are gutless losers.

Yes, there is some shame in being the first team in NFL history to win a division with a losing record.

But there is more shame in letting St. Louis complete a season sweep of the Seahawks.

There is even more shame in allowing our most hated division rivals to beat us in our own house in front of a prime time national audience.

There is still more shame in permitting a rookie quarterback to lead the Rams to the NFC West title at our expense.

Yes, if we lose, we will move down into a more favorable draft position. So what?

First of all, only losers even think about throwing a game, for any reason.

Second, high draft picks aren't really an advantage. The only thing you get from picking early is the right to overpay overrated players like Aaron Curry. That sounds flippant, but it is in fact borne out by academic research. According to rigorous economic analysis, late-round picks yield the best value. Check it out: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/05/the-loser-apos-s-curse/4795/

Third, even if we have a great draft in 2011, most of the players on our team will be holdovers from this year's Seahawks squad. (I don't see Carroll and Schneider turning over half the roster again. It's one thing to dump leftovers from the Holmgren and Mora era. It's quite another to discard players you recruited.)

This raises a question: Do we want next year's Seahawks roster to be dominated by players who learned how to quit, who refused to seize their last chance, whose only victory after October came against Carolina, the one-win whipping boys of the NFL?

Or do we want the core of next year's team to be veterans of a squad that rallied from adversity and got it together when it really mattered?

There is a huge difference between 7-9 and 6-10.

A 6-10 record means we could fall to third place in the division, if San Francisco dispatches Arizona. 6-10 is a wasted year. 6-10 means our season is over.

On the other hand, 7-9 means we refused to throw a home game. 7-9 would show that when our backs were against the wall, we decided to man up and take the division title. 7-9 means the Seahawks stay alive, that our season continues into the playoffs. Anything can happen in the postseason.

Best of all, 7-9 means we can hoist a division championship banner to the rafters of Seahawks Stadium, where it would hang in perpetuity.

Seattle spent 25 years in the AFC West, and won only two division titles, in 1988 and 1999. That's an 8% rate of success.

This season marks our tenth year in the NFC West. Recently, we won four consecutive titles (2004-2007). If we win on Sunday, we will have compiled a 50% success rate in the division. To me, that's worth something.

Good teams make the playoffs routinely. We have a chance to win our fifth division title in seven years. Let's do it.