FanPost

Why are we Seahawk fans so disgruntled? I've got an answer.

The debate has been roiling around here since the Rams game, in which we won but played horribly, whether or not we Seahawks fans are spoiled to be at 7-1 and yet just feeling sick about the team. Everyone wished condolences upon Danny for having to watch the game again on Rewind.

There was a time, say, for the last 30+ years of Seahawks game, that all we rooted for was a win. Would this be a year that we were able to crash into the playoffs? Every win helped. Now, with a 99% chance of making the playoffs, we're getting choosy.

I posted a relevant poll fanpost a few weeks ago asking which type of Hawks win people most enjoyed watching: The back-and-forth battle, tense to the end? The blowout win in which the game is never in doubt? A game that starts evenly but in which we put away all doubt by the fourth quarter?

Opinion was mixed in the comments, some preferring the thrill of final-minute battles and others loathing the effect on their ol' tickers. Maybe, once you get beyond wins, we're all looking for different things from the sport.

Maybe.

The more I thought about the Rams game, especially how un-Seahawk-y it was, I came to a realization: What do we want from a football game beside wins? Beauty.

Think for a moment about the Golden Tate touchdown bomb. It was the one play where everything game together for our offense. It was a play that should have let us breathe a sigh of relief and think: "OK, if we can do that, there's hope." But Tate made it an ugly play, something we wanted to sweep under the rug instead of revisiting over and over.

Russell Wilson was clearly told in this game to play from the pocket, and to hold onto the football no matter what, at least for a while. Suddenly, gone from the highlight reels were our usual Wilson miracle escapes and derring-do.

Lynch barely got the rock, and as a result never got a rhythm going to the point he was able to break through to become his signature juke-'em blast-'em self.

We've said a thousand time that this game was an ugly win, but never the corollary: we missed the beauty of our game. The Seahawks' play is unlike any other in the league, carried out by our misfit crew of castoffs and never-shouldas. We just play differently. Aggressive. Improvisational. Will-bending.

There is no show put on by the NFL week-to-week that's as entertaining or spectacular, for my money, as the one our guys put on. We want to see that signature Seahawks style. It's a thing of beauty.