Seahawks: 'We're coming back strong. This is who we are.'
By Jay Busbee
10 hours ago
Shutdown Corner
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Admit it. You thought Seattle was going to do it. You thought the Seahawks would be the first team in 15 years to overcome a 31-point deficit, thought they'd leave the Carolina Panthers in a broken, twitching, dabbing heap.
It didn't happen, of course; Carolina won without scoring a point in the second half, won despite watching Russell Wilson engineer another one of those magnificent halves that had the entire Bank of America Stadium faithful tugging nervously at the scarves that seemed to grow tight around their throats.
Russell Wilson stumbled badly in the first half but roared later in the game. (AP)
So maybe that's why Seattle's locker room didn't have the heavy pall of a funeral parlor, why Seahawks managed resigned smiles and even the occasional laugh or two. They knew that they'd bucked the odds twice by even getting here—first, by getting to the playoffs after a 2-4 start, and second, by getting to Charlotte after a missed gimme Vikings kick last week in Minnesota. So their luck ran out this time around. Somehow, the Seahawks always manage to manufacture more.
"This is a real club," head coach Pete Carroll said. "In that locker room, they're already talking about coming back strong. That's how we are. This is who we are."
"For me personally, if we don't win the Super Bowl, it's not a success," linebacker Bobby Wagner said. "We fought hard, and we played our butts off, but we lost."
Certainly, the Seahawks had plenty of excuses for those dirt-ugly first 30 minutes, in which they were down 14-0 in less than four minutes and 31-0 at the half. The team played in subzero temperatures last week. They traveled cross-country for a game at 10 a.m. body clock time on Sunday. The field conditions were, at best, choppy.
"No excuses," center Patrick Lewis told Yahoo Sports, waving off any suggestion that this was anything other than a team loss. "We didn't execute, and we got beat. Simple as that."
"I don't want to point to fatigue or anything like that," safety Earl Thomas said. "I don't want to make any excuses."
The Seahawks' furious second-half comeback should give fans of the team hope; players certainly salvaged at least some measure of comfort from the fact that they didn't roll over. But there is reason to be concerned. Running back Marshawn Lynch, little-used on Sunday because of the scoring deficit, is almost surely gone, and linebacker Bruce Irvin and receiver Jermaine Kearse are free agents. The Legion of Boom isn't getting any younger. The challenge now is on Carroll and the Seahawks front office to bring in and develop the next generation of Seahawks.
Outside the Seahawks' locker room hung a gargantuan 8-foot-by-12-foot "12" flag, signed by hundreds of fans with GO HAWKS messages all over it. The flag is a symbol of the intense loyalty this team inspires in its fans, and that the team in turn shows in its coaches and each other. Indeed, the only conflict in the postgame locker room came when a couple of reporters in a scrum snapped at one another, and several Seahawks played peacemaker. The team itself was just fine.
The Seahawks are done for this seasons. But come September, the most resilient team in the NFL will get another run. Doubt them at your peril.
Poster Comment:
Two videos at source. Go Bears!