Seattle hoping Seahawks can break city's title drought

SEATTLE - The last time the Seattle Seahawks went into a season with expectations anywhere near as high as they were this year, they lost their star running back to a season-ending knee injury in the 1984 opener.

The last time the Seahawks made a run to the Super Bowl, they were plagued by dropped passes and a few questionable calls that still leave the fan base spitting mad nearly eight years later.

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So while these Seahawks have somehow found a way to live up to the hype heading into Monday night's showdown with the New Orleans Saints (9-2), there are 37 years of history to temper some of the excitement surrounding football in the Emerald City these days. All of that noise inside CenturyLink Field might sound like unbridled enthusiasm, but there's plenty of nervous anticipation around these parts.

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'Among the fans who aren't into face-painting, I think there are a lot of people waiting for the shoe to drop,' said Art Thiel, a columnist who has been a fixture in the Seattle sports community for more than 30 years. 'People just can't grasp the concept that one of their teams will actually walk the talk.'

Since last December, when coach Pete Carroll took the reins off then-rookie quarterback Russell Wilson, the Seahawks are 14-1. Throw in two playoff games and a perfect preseason, and Seattle has lost twice over a span of 21 games.

Since falling 34-28 to the Indianapolis Colts on Oct. 6, the Seahawks have rattled off six consecutive wins - the last two by an average of 22 points.

They have done it with the NFL's best secondary - though recent suspensions of corners Brandon Browner and Walter Thurmond clearly hurt - and a rather unremarkable offense that has probably relied too much on its wise-beyond-his-years quarterback and bruising running back Marshawn Lynch. That duo helped carry an attack that has spent most of the season without both starting tackles and didn't have playmaking wide receiver Percy Harvin until Week 11.

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With those players back and a bye week to rest up, the Seahawks are rolling into their second Monday Night Football appearance of the season on a serious high note.

'Everything good is happening at the right time,' linebacker Bobby Wagner said after the Seahawks' latest win, a 41-20 dismantling of the Minnesota Vikings on Nov. 17. 'We're getting healthy, and we're starting to peak at the right time. You never want it to happen early; you want it to be happening now.'

Back-to-back wins against New Orleans and the San Francisco 49ers could all but wrap up the No. 1 seed in the NFC, but that wouldn't be enough for this team.

'We haven't done anything yet,' Wilson said. 'We're 10-1, and that means a lot, but that wasn't our goal. Our goal is to win it all.'

It's as realistic a goal as ever, but you'll forgive the team's fans if they can't help wonder what might go wrong this time.

The city of Seattle has been without a championship in a major professional sport since 1979, when the SuperSonics won an NBA title before setting off more than three decades of mediocrity, misery and, at times, apathy. There have been a few near misses along the way, especially for a Seahawks franchise that has been to only two conference championship games (the AFC after the 1983 season and the NFC 22 years later) and made one Super Bowl appearance.

The 1984 season was supposed to be Seattle's finest moment, what with the Seahawks coming off an unforeseen trip to the AFC title game. Star running back Curt Warner got hurt in the season opener, the Seahawks had to settle for a wild-card berth, and they bowed out in the divisional round.

That turned out to be a mile marker for this franchise, which needed more than two decades before earning another postseason victory. The 2005 team came out of nowhere to post a franchise-best 13-3 record and roll through the playoffs before the Pittsburgh Steelers ended their run in Super Bowl XL. Ask anyone in Seattle about that game, and they'll probably mention the handful of officiating calls that went against the Seahawks - proof that the city is still in the denial stage of the grieving process.

'(Super Bowl XL) has stuck with Seattle people,' said Craig Terrill, a defensive lineman on that team who now serves as a Seahawks pregame analyst. 'Whenever people bring up that game to me, the first words out of their mouth are, 'Boy, you got screwed in that game.'

'They're still emotionally torn up about it. That shows the investment fans here put into the team.'

What might make this team different is that, for the first time in as long as the city can remember, high expectations are meeting performance.

Most of this city's best seasons came from teams that seemingly came out of nowhere - the 1995-96 SuperSonics (lost to the Chicago Bulls in the NBA Finals), 2001 Mariners (American League-record 116 wins but playoff loss to the New York Yankees) and 2005 Seahawks serve as obvious examples. This year's team was anointed as a Super Bowl favorite by many, and thus far it has lived up to the hype.

'Listen to fans this offseason, they legitimately had 'Super Bowl win' as a minimum requirement for success,' Terrill said. 'That's a tough thing to put on a franchise, because you can have a really successful season and still have people feeling unsatisfied at the end.'

To make sure that doesn't happen, the players are doing what they can to tune out the talk about what might happen in the postseason. 'If you start looking down the road too much,' safety Earl Thomas said, 'you miss the opportunity right in front of you.'

The bigger opportunity won't come for two more months. Plenty of people in Seattle are knocking on wood right about now, but this is starting to look like the kind of year that ends a drought.

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'They came so close last year and have a quarterback (Wilson) who is so unconventionally poised and skilled,' Thiel said. 'He engenders belief in the impossible - which, in Seattle, is the Super Bowl.'

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