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Sunday 5th February 2006 |
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Well what a fantastic season for the Seahawks. Better than anyone could have imagined or even dared to wish for back in September. 11 game winning streak, NFC West Champions, NFC Champions, MVP, records here, records there and capped off by our first ever visit to the Super Bowl.
This past season has been like an addiction for me. I couldn't get enough of the Seahawks and for once in my life they kept on delivering more. There has never, ever been a better time to be a Seahawks fan than 11:00pm UK time on Sunday 5th February 2006. I'm going to try and hang onto that thought and savour the moment for as long as I possibly can.
You see I normally get so nervous that I'm a physical and emotional wreck. The Divisional game against the Redskins was a torture for me and despite our comfortable winning margin against the Panthers in the NFC Championship game in many ways that was worse. I figured the Super Bowl was going to be almost impossible for me to watch.
The thing was I hardly felt nervous at all, I just felt extremely proud to be associated with a great team and a great bunch of fans both here and in the US. It was like I was walking on the field trying to soak up the atmosphere and let it wash away 20 odd years of hurt.
I wasn't just happy to be there I wanted to win the game and was supremely confident in our ability to get the job done. So why didn't we?
The way I see it there was not one over-riding factor. It was a mixture of our own inability to execute as we had done all season, 3 big plays by the Steelers and of course the officials.
In reverse order I am not going to sit here bleating about how the officials costs us the game. Almost every columnist in the US has already done that on our behalf. There is no doubt to my Seahawk eyes that plain bad calls cost us at least 14 points and arguably the game. You learn to deal with bad calls but what concerned me more than anything was the way that all of the disputed calls were ruled in favour of the Steelers.
I read somewhere that the Steelers went through the final 97 plays of the game without having a penalty called against them. Matching that against some of the stuff that the Seahawks were called for is tough to take and to my mind doesn't add up to a fairly officiated game.
It could be said that I'm a whining loser but if a current poll on ESPN is to be believed, out of 150,000 people who voted, 78.5% of them are of the opinion that the officiating unfairly favoured the Steelers. Heaven knows we Seahawks fans are used to losing and as I said it is tough to take but we'll get over it - eventually.
The Steelers it has to be said made the plays when it mattered. The 3rd and 28 pass to Hines Ward was a killer. Having sacked Roethlisberger on the previous play it was shocking how much time and space we allowed him to complete the pass. Forget whether Roethlisberger was in our out of the end zone a few plays later the damage was done on that play.
The most frustrating part of the entire game for me came on the 2nd play of the 3rd quarter when Willie Parker broke a 75 yard run for a touchdown. Up until then the Seahawks had almost shut down the Steelers running game and to allow this at the crucial first possession of the second half was a crushing blow. Trying to apply a sense of balance I can credit this one to the Steelers as it was the exact sort of play that we have, on occasions, given up big yards on all season.
Although we can argue over whether the Steelers should have been in position to make the play all day long we ended up being burned in the 4th quarter by the play that we knew was coming. The reverse to Randle El and the pass to Ward. It was a great play.
Having shut down the running game except for 1 play and forcing Roethlisberger to a passer rating of 22 the giving up of those 3 plays was what ultimately won the game for the Steelers.
I must admit that I'm troubled in analysing how the Seahawks performed or failed to as the case may be. We had more total yards than the Steelers, controlled the clock for longer and won the turnover battle. In fact I've just read that no team in Super Bowl history has won those 3 battles and gone on to lose the game. It arguably points to the impact the officials had on the game but what could we have done better.
Apart from the obvious things of Jerramy Stevens catching the ball better in a crowd, Josh Brown finishing a couple of 50+ yard field goal tries then I'm struggling.
I personally don't think there was anything fundamentally wrong with how Hasselbeck and Holmgren played the game. OK, we were a bit spotty in the 2 minute drills at the end of either half but the game wasn't won or lost there. Maybe Holmgren could have been a bit more adventurous and Hass a bit more precise on occasions but we did move the ball sufficiently to have won the game.
Trailing 14-10 late in the 3rd quarter Hasselbeck moved the ball 97 yards in 5 minutes prior to the worst flag of the lot being thrown on Sean Locklear for a hold that never occurred. Without that the Seahawks score from the 1 yard line to lead 17-14 in the 4th quarter. For me that will be the defining moment of the game and I'll always wonder what would have happened.
Sure it hurts, it hurts a lot but we are what we started the season as - Seahawks fans. Only this time we are Seahawks fans who have won a Championship game, Seahawks fans who have been to the Super Bowl.
There will undoubtedly be more misery ahead but for the immediate future I see only good things from a well run, well managed franchise with a group of players and fans that have made the NFL sit up and take notice this season.
I'll take the hit and take the hurt but look forward to the future with optimism and hopefully a day when we right some of the wrongs that took place at Ford Field, Detroit last Sunday.
Andrew Robinson
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