Seahawks diehards may find it hard to get excited about today's playoff games. The pain of our own elimination from the postseason remains fresh, and we are haunted by the emptiness of knowing that more than seven months separate us from the next Seahawks Sunday.
But of course we'll be watching the conference championship games. We can't help it. We love football.
However, I offer the following to sweeten the viewing experience of Seahawks diehards.
First, some solace: The teams we watch today are the only four teams in the league that made it deeper into the playoffs than Seattle did. Twenty-four of the NFL's 32 teams got eliminated before the Seahawks. So, we can feel good about our season and look forward to next year.
Now, whom should we support in today's Pleistocene NFC Championship bout between the Bears and the Packers?
An understandable diehard knee-jerk reaction would be to favor Green Bay because Chicago beat us last week.
However, if the Bears win, our elimination becomes less shameful, because we lost to the eventual conference champions.
I find it hard to be angry at Chicago. They won last week, fair and square. Brian Urlacher gloated a little on the sideline, but everyone knows he's a horse's ass.
There's a sentimental case to be made for the Packers. They're the visiting underdogs, trying to get to the Super Bowl the hard way, via a wild card berth and three road games. They hail from the league's smallest market. They're the only franchise that has managed to buck the plantation paradigm of plutocrat ownership. Because Green Bay shares are owned by hundreds of individual investors, the team will never move.
But then again, there are those uniforms. Why can't they ditch that ghastly color scheme?
I've always liked the Bears; after the Seahawks, they're my team. I loved Walter Payton. Weirdly, last week's loss increased my esteem for Chicago fans. My fiancee and I were spending the weekend in Tucson. I watched last week's game at the sports bar next to our hotel so she could take the car shopping. The establishment--called The Loop--turned out to be a Bears bar. So, I'm sitting there in my #71 Seahawks jersey, watching the game surrounded by Chicago fans and Monsters of the Midway memorabilia. I braced myself for some trash talk, but everyone was really nice to me.
Chicago's roster contains no former Seahawks. Their only obvious local connection is ex-Husky center Olin Kreutz, a dominant player, though slightly unbalanced. He got kicked out of UW for punching a teammate in practice and breaking his jaw. A few years ago, he punched a Bears teammate in practice and broke his jaw. (That time, he kept his job, and the victim got cut. The NFL and the NCAA play by different rules.)
The Packers have no former Seahawks and no ex-Huskies.
So, Kreutz awards a slight diehard advantage to da Bears.
Really, it doesn't matter. If you can't get excited about an NFC championship game featuring a rematch of the league's oldest rivalry, you don't love pro football. May the best team win.
Of course, when it comes to the AFC championship, there is a clear Seahawks diehard position: Down with Pittsburgh.
I admire Hines Ward and Troy Polamalu, but I have no use for the rest of them.
The Stealers have never acknowledged the massive assist they received from the officials in Super Bowl XL.
They have no ex-Seahawks or former Huskies on their roster.
Their quarterback is a scumbag rapist and a disgrace to the league and to the sport.
New York quarterback Mark Sanchez has a rape arrest in his past, too.
So, above all, I'm rooting for the pass rush. I want blitzing defenders to wreak merciless karmic retribution upon Big Ben and Dirty Sanchez. I want both starting quarterbacks knocked out of the game with injuries so catastrophic that they miss the Super Bowl, too. Since the NFL lacks the integrity to ban him from the league for life, a career-ending injury for Roethlisberger is our only hope for justice.
As for the Jets, there are some reasons to root for them, even if they weren't playing the Stealers:
1. Lance Laury, a longtime reserve linebacker and special teams stalwart for Seattle. Now he's a Jet.
2. LaDainian Tomlinson & Marty Schottenheimer. Denied a Super Bowl in San Diego, and then jettisoned by an ungrateful franchise. Now in the twilight of his career, Tomlinson, the decade's greatest running back, deserves a chance to win it all. Marty will never coach again, but he can win vicariously through his son Brian, who is New York's offensive coordinator.
3. Tony Richardson, one of the greatest fullbacks in league history, an unsung hero who for 16 years has blasted open holes, making greatness possible for Marcus Allen, Priest Holmes, Larry Johnson, and Adrian Peterson. The man deserves a Super Bowl ring.
4. Mark Brunell. One of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the University of Washington, Brunell now backs up Sanchez. In my fantasy scenario, Dirty blows out a knee and Brunell leads the Jets to victory in the AFC championship and the Super Bowl.
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