What hurts the most is that New Orleans still sucks. What a tease, we almost came back against a team that was ground into dust by the Tampa Bay Bucs. Wheeeee.
I have no ancillary interests so I'm going to tell you what everyone else is scared to say:
The Hawks are going to make the playoffs...
And then some team is going to use their eye socket in an obscene way.
Any hope of true contention is over. The 2007 Hawks can aspire to the heights of the 1992 Buffalo Bills. No they can't. A reasonable argument exists that whatever NFC team makes it to the Super Bowl will have their tongue stapled to an ant hill by the Patriots, Colts, Steelers...take heart in that if you enjoy sour grapes.
Meanwhile, the rest of the NFC West is falling in on itself. Arizona is contending with Tim Rattay and Kurt Warner manning the helm. The 49ers are looking forward to Alex Smith returning after the bye. Saint Louis has a shot!! The division is in hand, ha. Ha. Haaaa...
Shaun Alexander is being booed. It's not the play calling (ed. Okay some it is the play calling), that's heroic by Holmgren (who will retire) to take the blame, but the fans are sick of Alexander playing poorly. They're not booing just because he's playing poorly, but because they believe he can play better. I read it every day on Seahawks Insider: "he's soft", "he's not running hard", "he never was good". Alexander is 30, his foot is broken--give the guy a break. He's just not very good anymore. I wish I could join in on the ad hominem attacks; it certainly turns the game into some kind of grotesque parable. The Saints wanted it more. Seattle quit on the field. The Hawks deserved to lose. Seattle was beat by a mediocre team, because they are a mediocre team. They suffered a little bit of bad luck. They're a little bit banged up. They were outplayed, too.
Like Saint Louis, a few stray injuries to a few key players keep Seattle from poor and inconsistent to awful and ugly. The team is old and thin at essential positions; it's also young and talented at others. If Hasselbeck isn't killed in the next 10 weeks, he's a championship caliber quarterback for a couple more seasons. Rocky Bernard (28) Deon Grant (28) Julian Peterson (29) Patrick Kerney (30) and Walter Jones (33) will not play better next year. Sean Locklear and Marcus Trufant will depart this offseason. The net result will leave Seattle squarely in rebuilding mode. We'll start looking into what 2007 can mean for 2008 and what 2008 can mean for 2009, tomorrow. The season is not over. The Hawks will play some good games to come, they will play some bad, but anything resembling true contention is over.
Goodnight everyone.