Does buying into hype really cause damage?

[olyfan63]

IMO, 2012 was the year of Seahawks hype. They had the talent to be great, but hadn't turned that into wins yet. The 2013 team is coming off an 11-5 season that should have been a 13-3 season. Buy in or don't buy, it doesn't matter what you or anyone thinks, the Seahawks are already an elite franchise. It would take a damned miracle for this team to finish 8-8.

Or we could've just as easily been 9-7. Agreed, the meltdowns in Detroit and Miami were super-frustrating, super-costly, and should not have happened. (not to mention the pattern repeating in Atlanta). The meltdowns also showed the team wasn't good enough and deep enough in key position groups, e.g. DL.
I'm also in the minority in believing that Super Bowl XL was, on balance, a fair result and logical consequence of lack of DB back depth ("thank you (not!) Tim Ruskell)", that Marquand Manuel goes out with an injury in the 2nd quarter, Etric Pruitt man-off-the-street comes in, and the Stealers recognize this and scheme to exploit him, with 2 long TD's resulting.
We got a little lucky last year with the dramatic GB and NE wins, and very unlucky with the Detroit, Miami, and Atlanta losses. But credit our opponents for seeing our weaknesses and then designing and making the plays to exploit those weaknesses.
So overall 11-5 seems like a fair result from last season.

Agreed, the Seahawks are absolutely an elite franchise right now, but we still seem to be weak in the DL position group this year. Time will tell. It's our achilles heel, and I wouldn't be surprised to see us lose 3-4 games based on that weakness alone. I do hope as the year goes on, and Dan Quinn works his magic, that by the end of the year the DL is solid and a non-weakness.