I can hardly believe it: my dream Super Bowl match-up has come to pass. The Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers will meet in two weeks for the first Super Bowl game that has ever really meant anything to me.
I’ve always supported the Seattle Seahawks. When we were kids and did not have a television, Jeff and I would listen to Jim Zorn and Steve Largent and the lowly Seahawks every Sunday. We took great delight in the fact that the team would often run trick plays. Nothing pleased us more than a fake field goal.
We did have a television during the era of Dave Krieg and Kurt Warner, the golden age of Seahawk football. The team did well, often thrashing those hated Oakland Raiders. The Seahawks even made the playoffs from time-to-time.
In college I learned about fantasy football, and that completely changed the way I viewed the actual game. Still, I clung to my Seahawks through ups-and-downs. The fall after I graduated, the fall I was selling insurance door-to-door, the Seahawk radio play-by-plays were often my companions on Sunday afternoons as I drove to the far corners of Oregon.
Then, in the mid-nineties, my interest waned (though not my loyalty). I watched football less and less. I was more interested in fantasy football. Still, every year I’d follow the team in the paper. When Seattle played Pittsburgh, my cousin Nick and I would engage in friendly trash-talking. (Nick is a lifelong Steelers fan. About a decade ago he won a radio contest and got to fly to Pittsburgh to watch a game from the sidelines.) I always used to joke that Seattle and Pittsburgh ought to meet in the Super Bowl (which was impossible because (a) the teams were both in the AFC and (b) the teams sucked).
That joking dream, however, has become a reality. For once, a Super Bowl I really care about.
I’m sorry, Seattle, for having been lukewarm in my support during the past few years. I’m sorry I haven’t watched you on TV every week (or at least listened to your games). I’m sorry I don’t even know all your players anymore. I promise to be a more faithful fan.
Go Seahawks!
I’m fairly impressed that the walrus (Mike Holmgren) has finally assembled a really good team. And it’s a very different team than the other three teams in the league championships, built around stars who break the game open and a pretty good supporting cast, as opposed to fundamentals-and-defense-and-a-tough-system. It’s basically how he built his Green Bay championship 10 years ago.
I think Seattle can be beaten, but it will take Ben Roethisburger stepping up to become a star the way Tom Brady did four years ago. Which could happen. But if Shawn Alexander runs all over the Pittsburgh defense (and heck, he just ran all over the Carolina defense, so it could happen) then Pittsburgh is probably doomed.
Congratulations you Seahawk lover you. I know how you feel for I too have been a loyal fan of a team that rarely wins and is one of the laughingstocks of the NFL. When my Buccaneers went and then won the Super Bowl I was ecstatic and I hope you can see your team win!!!
On behalf of my entire city, this Seattleite forgives you for all those fickle years. We all knew that you’d eventually find your way home, grasshopper.
After reading several articles and after looking at the stats, I have a Super Bowl prediction: this is a close match-up, and it should be a good game, but I’m picking Seattle to prevail 21-17. (This goes against the oddsmakers, who have picked Pittsburgh as four point favorites.)
Ha! I picked that exact score, too. But then I thought, “You know, Seattle always scores at least one field goal”. So, I changed my prediction to 24-17 in favor of the Seahawks.
I don’t care much what the point spread is, as long as the Seahawks win. 🙂
Are you hosting a Super Bowl Party?