Many people in the area I come from are big fans of the Seattle Seahawks. On Blue Fridays, they wear their Seahawks clothing to show their support for their favorite team, they watch them on game days and cheer them on as much as possible.
Seahawks fans are referred to as 12’s, referring to being the 12th man on the field for the Seahawks when they play their games. Now, of course, not everybody loves the Seahawks, I have friends who are huge fans of the Packers, Eagles, Ravens, Redskins, Lions and even the Patriots.
Regardless who your favorite team is, you recognize success when you see it, and the Seahawks have had great success the past few years. Their style of physical play on defense with the Legion of Boom (LOB) and smash mouth hard-nosed running offense has left a lot of teams on the losing side when they play the Hawks.
Nobody with the competitive juices or atmosphere the Seahawks have created enjoy losing. You go out and practice and study all week to be better than the team you are playing, and when you fall short of that, you are not usually very happy. Especially when it does not happen very often and you really expect to win every game. The atmosphere and expectations are slightly different for the Seahawks than they are for the Cleveland Browns.
However, that gives no excuse for poor behavior when you do lose, and that is exactly what the Seahawks have modeled multiple times when they have lost. I love the expectation the Seahawks bring each week to the football field that they are going to win, but if they fall short, they need to accept it and move on to the next game.
An example is the Super Bowl against the Patriots (I know, I’m sorry to bring it up). Right after Russel threw the interception, the Patriots were on their own one-yard line and would have to get three knees down to end the game. That could have actually been hard with where they were on the field, if our defensive tackles could have gotten a good push, we could have potentially caused a safety and had a chance.
Instead, we went out there and acted like little babies and were pushing and shoving the offensive lineman and other players on the Patriots. Obviously, the Super Bowl is a little bit of higher stakes, but this has been seen in the regular season too.
Look at their game two weeks ago, against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The whole game was kind of chippy and extremely competitive. We eventually gave up a first down that sealed the deal, and on the next play, Michael Bennett rolled over a Jaguar lineman and a scuffle occurred.
By the end of the game, two of our defensive lineman had been ejected from the game for unsportsmanlike conduct and throwing a punch. I love the Seattle Seahawks, but when they act like this after a losing effort, it is embarrassing to watch, and represents the Seahawks very poorly.