In Defense Of Hope

As the hours tick down towards the first real kickoff of the 2010 season I caught myself in a weird place;I wasn't excited for the season to start. Now don't get me wrong, I can't wait to be in the 300 level of Qwest Field on Sunday screaming my ass off but for the first time in a long time I didn't find myself full of never ending hope and optimism that normally accompanies me in week 1.

Maybe it's because so many members of the best run in Seahawks history are gone now after they have been given away for what appears to be peanuts considering all the memories that they had given us. Maybe the toll of two terrible seasons had finally taken it's toll on me or maybe it's because with each passing day I opened up Field Gulls or Twitter with more fear of their next transaction. I'm not sure what exactly it was but all that I knew is that my usual early September swagger was missing.

As I tried to analyze my mood it struck me that the last time that I had felt this way about this team was September 2005. I remember driving to work that morning listening to kickoff against the Jags and thinking to myself how unexcited for the new season that I must have been considering that I didn't even bother to watch it on TV but at that point who could blame me after the previous 12 months.

Going into the the 2004 season we were the pick to represent the NFC in Super Bowl XXXIX but despite racing out to a 3 and 0 start and an 18 point lead at home against our biggest divsion rival we fell flat on our face. We lost the next two games too including a game where afterwards our coach that was supposed to be the master of selecting quarterbacks talked about dumbing down the offense for his hand picked man. Almost nobody on the team could hold onto the football and the only man that could ended up dropping the biggest pass of the entire season.

We headed into a offseason where Matthew Hasselbeck, Shaun Alexander and Walter Jones were all unrestricted free agents. The man that was brought to Seattle from Green Bay with promises of Super Bowls was almost forced out by Bob Whitsitt. Our front office was a mess. The man that was eventually brought in had a draft that was questioned by many of the top pundits and completely overhauled the defense with many unpopular decisions. These were just a small portion of the things that were the reason behind my dampened enthusiasm that September morning.

But then this happened

This isn't a post comparing the merits and talent between the 2005 team with the 2010 squad. I understand that team had a much more talented core that was anchored by numerous hall of fame caliber players. This is a post to say that in the NFL anything and everything can happen without any basis in logic. This is a post to say that just because we don't think this team can accomplish anything it doesn't mean they won't.

This is post to ask you to recognize that for all the warts the National Football League may have, the one thing that it has more than any other sport is parity and the fact that any team in any division has a legitimate chance of contending for the title in week one. 

This is a post that is asking you to take 25 minutes between now and when you settle down to watch the game on Sunday be it in your living room or at your local bar or in downtown Seattle with 67,000 of your closest friends to watch the video that I just included.

This is a post to remind you that hope doesn't need to be based in reality.

This is a post to remind you that our one job as fans is to give this team as much effort and desire as we hope that they show on the field.

This is a post to remind you that the Seahawks are going to win the Super Bowl this year. If they don't, I don't care because that's why they invented the future and my love for this team isn't going anywhere.

This is a post to remind you to get excited for this season.