Super Bowl XLIX — with the matchup many of us projected before the season started — will be a proving ground in so many ways for both the Seahawks and the Patriots.
Going against the man who succeeded him in New England, Pete Carroll will have a chance to prove he is every bit the coaching genius that Bill Belichick — long the NFL’s best coach — is. What better way to do it than head to head?
Redemption, resilience, trust, teamwork.
Other than a trip to the Super Bowl, those were the themes of the Seahawks’ historic comeback win over the Green Bay Packers, 28-22 in overtime, on Sunday.
For much of the game, Russell Wilson, Jermaine Kearse and Doug Baldwin were the Three Stooges — taking turns poking each other in the eyes, hitting each other in the head and tripping over each other.
Wilson threw four interceptions — all on passes intended for Kearse, who had two go off his hands — and Baldwin fumbled on a kick return and dropped two passes himself.
But all three redeemed themselves on the winning drive in overtime — Wilson hitting Baldwin twice for 45 yards and then finding Kearse for the winning 35-yard touchdown.
After the game, Wilson and Kearse were overcome with emotion after their rollercoaster day.
Continue reading The hallmarks of that win: Redemption, trust and resilience
When team captain Tarvaris Jackson went out for the overtime coin toss Sunday, it should have been a reminder to everyone of this simple fact: The Seahawks would not be a Super Bowl team without Russell Wilson.
Plenty of people are calling Wilson’s game against the Packers — in which he threw a career-high four interceptions — the worst of his career. Wrong. Dead wrong.
Continue reading Wilson’s worst game? Why are they headed to the Super Bowl then?
Almost every statistic and numerous
immeasurables point to the Seahawks beating the Packers today and advancing to the
Super Bowl for the
second straight year.
But there is a formula for beating Seattle — it’s just a question of whether it still works.
First, consider these pro-Seattle stats:
**The Seahawks’ average margin of victory in eight home wins this season was 15.4.
**The Seahawks are 9-1 at home in rematches over the past three seasons. The average margin of victory is 18.2.
Continue reading History favors Hawks, but what about formula for beating them?
First, some game matchups to watch, via Seahawks.com.
Jerry Brewer expresses what probably every Seahawks fan feels: The team needs to find a way to keep Marshawn Lynch beyond this season.
Lynch’s new gold-plated shoes are pretty boss … Boss.
How much did the Seahawks want to keep B.J. Daniels around? They bumped his pay by five times to equal an active-roster salary.
With Bam Bam Kam Chancellor getting so much love all week, Greg Bishop of SI.com put together an in-depth look at the Seahawks’ Super Serious Safety, Earl Thomas.
Sound FX got some great sound from the Carolina-Seattle game off the microphones of linebackers Bobby Wagner and Luke Kuechly.
Demarcus Dobbs’ team is in the NFC title game for the fourth straight year. He should get his first Super Bowl win this time.
Russell Wilson and J.R. Sweezy’s salaries will jump in 2015 due to the “Proven Performance Escalator.” Of course, Wilson is going to get a huge contract extension, making the escalator moot. But Sweezy’s $660,000 salary will more than double, into the $1.5 million range.
Who says all big linemen are blockheads? The Packers’ guys are addicted to the strategy game “Settlers of Catan” (wait until they try “Puerto Rico”).
If the Seahawks beat the Packers on Sunday, as expected, it will be Russell Wilson’s third win vs. Aaron Rodgers. And then Wilson probably will beat Rodgers again within the next two or three months — in contract value.
Rodgers, who is the favorite to be named league MVP, signed a $110 million deal in 2013 — and obviously has been worth it. But another Super Bowl win for Wilson probably would trump another MVP award for Rodgers (who also won in 2011) when it comes to the negotiating table.
Rodgers’ deal guaranteed him $54 million and will pay out $62.5 million over the first three years.
The Seahawks — always willing to pay their homegrown stars — are likely to give Wilson a deal that exceeds Rodgers’ contract, guaranteeing as much as $60 million.
Newer Seahawks fans — and there are plenty of them — might think the Packers-Seahawks series consists of two games: the Hawks’ infamous Fail Mary victory on a Monday night in 2012 and Seattle’s 20-point win in the opening game of this NFL season.
But this series was full of great matchups back when Mike Holmgren and quarterback Matt Hasselbeck were leading the Hawks against their old team — led by Brett Favre — and this will be the 11th meeting, the third in the playoffs, since 1999.
Continue reading Packers-Seahawks got interesting 15 years ago
Max matters.
Just ask Russell
Wilson and Pete
Carroll. Oh, and the stats.
In Seattle’s 31-17 playoff win over Carolina, center Max Unger returned from a six-game absence and helped the Seahawks’ offense surpass 30 points for just the fifth time this season while leading a line that protected Wilson as well as it had since the first month of the season.
And Unger survived a scare when he got his just-healed ankle rolled up on late in the game.
“I’m excited to have Max Unger back in there,” Wilson said after the game. “… Max Unger played a phenomenal game tonight. ”
Carroll wasn’t quite as effusive, but he was pleased to have the former All-Pro center back and knows he will only get better.
“He was real solid — pass protection was really good,” Carroll said, referencing the fact that Wilson was hit just twice — one of the cleanest games the Hawks have had up front all season.
“Our consistency, just like we had hoped, was there, along with the communication,” the coach said. “So it was a good start back for him. He hadn’t played in a long time, so you have to kick the rust off a little bit.”
Russell Wilson has almost always played well in the playoffs — six games and counting — and his performance Saturday against Carolina was his best yet.
The third-year quarterback buried the ghosts of his poor home games earlier in the season with a nearly perfect outing that also was probably his best game of the 2014 season.
He threw a postseason-career-high three touchdown passes and tallied a 149.2 rating, completing 68.2 percent, while tying Matt Hasselbeck for most playoff wins in Seattle history (five).
Wilson now has nine TD passes and just one interception in six postseason games, and his passer rating has been over 100 in four of them. In fact, his postseason passer rating of 109.6 is the best in NFL history (hat tip to Hawk Blogger for first reporting that stat).
So why was Wilson so good vs. the Panthers? (1) His offensive line kept him clean, (2) he was perfect on third downs, (3) he got the ball out quickly when he could and (4) he trusted his receivers to come down with long passes.
Continue reading A look at Wilson’s best playoff performance yet
There’s about a 60 percent chance Russell Wilson will throw an interception Saturday against the Carolina Panthers.
Why? It’s just how his clunky season has gone at the Clink.
When it comes to passing, Wilson has been as bad at home this season as he was on the road as a rookie — believe it or not.
Some of it has been him, some of it has been the game plan and plenty of it has been offensive line problems.
CHAWK TALK: Everything being said about the Seahawks 
