Two types of sports seasons reach deep into the fan base’s collective souls more than any other — and we’ve experienced them both in Seattle this year.
The first is the years-in-the-waiting breakthrough, when an agonizingly long dry spell is finally broken. The Mariners, of course, authored a master class of the genre in 2022, when they shattered a 21-year postseason drought. By the end, when the Mariners hosted their first playoff game since 1995 (it turned out, after 18 excruciating innings, to be their only home playoff game this year), there was a fever pitch of emotional involvement in the team.
And now the Seahawks are in the midst of inducing the second type of full-blown fan engagement, one that’s just as satisfying in its own fashion: the successful season that drops from the sky completely unexpectedly.
Let’s face it: The Seahawks entered this year with zero expectations. Correction, there were expectations, all right. They were universally expected to be lousy. Coming off a 7-10 year, they had traded Russell Wilson, so the quarterback position seemed to be null and void — the death knell of any football team’s hopes. Pete Carroll’s coaching style was regarded as passe. General manager John Schneider had lost his magic touch. At best it was going to be a transitional season. The big question was how long the transition — i.e., the losing — would linger.
Look at them now. At the virtual halfway point of the season, the Seahawks stand in first place in the NFC West — a division that contains the defending Super Bowl champion. Seattle is 5-3, matching its predicted number of wins for the entire season by Vegas. And with three wins in a row, a rapidly improving defense and the amazing renaissance of Geno Smith at quarterback, continued success may not be guaranteed, but it’s within the realm of possibility. Entering the season, playoff contention resided more in the realm of impossibility.
I sense that fans are loving every minute of this, embracing the sheer improbability of it all, just as ecstatic Phillies fans are in a state of disbelief that their team, which was sliding into oblivion down the stretch, is in the World Series. There wasn’t an “aha!” moment when one realized the Seahawks might have something special going. It was more like a slowly building but increasingly vivid recognition — an epiphany two months in the making.
And that, I suspect, is what has made the Seahawks’ season so satisfying, and so flat-out fun. No pressure, no angst, no deep emotional investment in the outcome, such as the one that imbued the Mariners’ season. If the M’s had ended the season with yet another close call but absent a playoff berth, it wouldn’t have been a moral victory or an encouraging step forward. It would have been a massive letdown and, frankly, a failure.
For the Seahawks, with nothing at stake, it has been all gravy. Every victory has seemed like an unforeseen gift. The emergence of Smith — especially when juxtaposed against Wilson’s fall from grace in Denver — has been a giddy joy ride. Fans have reembraced Carroll with a fondness that was always there but had been misplaced. And Carroll senses the burgeoning faith that his team is fostering, growing stronger with convincing wins such as Sunday’s over the 6-1 New York Giants.
“It’s kind of been an alert — ‘What’s going on here, what are these guys doing, how is this happening?’ ” Carroll said after the game. “They’re hanging together, and they’re playing together, and they know that they can improve, and they know that there’s areas in their football that they can get better. There’s just nobody satisfied at all, and it’s a great feeling. It’s the way you want your team to be at this time here at the midway point. We’re in good position in the division to make some noise if we can keep rolling.”
Ah, but will success kill the fun? Both these types of seasons I describe eventually segue into something more emotionally taxing. Having conquered their playoff drought, the Mariners will enter next year with the burden of not only trying to do it again, but to take it to the next level. The cathartic release of 20 years of pent-up frustration is gone; just getting there won’t be so satisfying next time.
And now comes a subtle but inevitable turning point in the orientation to this Seahawks season, I suspect. You can’t stay blissfully stress-free forever. There’s a moment when the “everything’s a bonus” mindset ends and, gulp, legitimate expectations set in. The Seahawks have been so shockingly good, defied the odds so thoroughly, done such a convincing impression of a contending team, that people want it to continue. Dare I say, they expect it to continue.
That’s still a great place to be, mind you. We’ve all seen how, well, fanatical Seahawks fans can be when they are given a good reason. Maybe the carefree aspect of the season, the perpetual feeling of suspended disbelief, will shift. But there’s no reason that success has to spoil the fun.