I am not a Seahawk fan, I am a Seahawk Freak and anyone who knows me will verify that claim. I've followed this team from the very first day that they announced the creation of an NFL team in Seattle on the front page of my hometown Sunday newspaper, that I read in an Army barracks TV room where I was posted in the Army at the time.
I can honestly say that I've watched every single game the Seahawks have ever played to include preseason.
The Seattle Seahawks are more than a football team for me, they are a living breathing entity, with a spirit and character all their own, that separates them from mediocrity, and that established them, as the most passionately followed professional sports team in the world. There is no other fan base like the Seahawks 12th Man. It's only natural that when you are as heart and soul connected to this team and it's players, as so many of us have become over the years, that when people leave, it feels like we are losing a long time friend, or in some cases like a family member, because we are.
Over the past 40 years I've seen a lot of changes, and I guess I accept that its inevitable, but it never seems to hurt any less to see these folks come and go. This year has been tougher than most because this is the core of players that brought home the Super Bowl Championship to Seattle, and gave many of us, what we had waited a life time to experience. I cried the day we won the Super Bowl, because it was a life long dream come true and having nearly died of a heart attack a short time before that day, I remembered thinking to myself that I might very likely go to my grave having been a Seahawk fan my whole life, and not ever known what it would be like to experience winning it all. God it felt incredibly good. It was, without a doubt one of the single greatest moments of my life.
This is a crazy and wonderful team that has a tremendously committed bunch of people behind it, that want nothing more than for the Seahawks to experience continued success and to keep our hopes and dreams of future championships and Super Bowl challenges alive. I have to trust that at the end of the day, someone has to make the tough decisions about matters of business and separate themselves from all the emotional ties with the fans and players and the powers that be have selected people who are qualified to make those tough choices for all of us, who are too emotionally tied to our team to be objective.
I can't help but remember last season, with the forming of all the vigilante committees, following our losses, wherein it seem the same members were calling for the heads of various coaches and players alike, who in their assessments, failed to perform up to their expectations. I always wanted to believe that the head honchos that run the show, didn't put much stock in what the disgruntled fans, and social media had to say, or wanted done in response to these sorts of things, but as I've seen things unfold following this last season, it's become painfully obvious that they do listen to what is said in here and it does influence their decision making at the end of the day.
I always reminded folks that this was the case, and I guess intellectually I knew it to be true, because of references I'd heard coaches and commentators make about some of the things we had discussed in this forum. I was probably being naive in thinking that they would actually make choices and decisions based on our feedback in this forum. I sleep well at night knowing that I was the one who always came to the defense of everyone under attack, except Blair Walsh, bring on the guillotine lol, hang him high. I'll buy his bus ticket out of town and back to Kansas with Dorthy, the Tin Man and the rest of that bunch.
So far it seems, at least to me, that the coaches and players that were targeted repeatedly by the forum vigilante committee regulars are the sames ones, almost to a man, that have been sent packing and looking for new homes around the league. While a good many of us are saddened by the departures of many of our Seahawk brothers, I can't help but think that there are just as many or more that are feeling a sense of satisfaction in that their efforts apparently paid off. I guess somewhere in the middle of all that thinking I have to concede that perhaps both sides were right, and that some are more capable of unbiased thinking than others and are not as easily influenced by their feelings and attachments to the team.
At the end of the day I'm glad that some didn't get their way with the removal and replacement of Pete Carroll and John Schneider, that Duo, in my opinion, is the best thing that has ever happened to the Seattle Seahawks . They breathed life back into a team that was gasping for new life, hope, and promise, and they delivered all that and then some to the Seahawks and their fans. If some of you are thinking that Pete and John can't pull the old Seahawk of the Ashes and give them their wings back, you are in for one hell of a surprise and eye opening experience in 2018 - 2019, cause "the Northwest is gonna do it again".
A little off topic, but maybe not, we all need to Look for Shaquem Griffin, to be grabbed up early by the Seahawks in the draft. I have never felt so strongly about anything or any player as I do Shaq, this Kid is a once in a life time gift to the world, and I pray that John and Pete have the wisdom, and foresight to recognize it. This is the stuff that dreams are made of and the kind of magnetic energy that the Seahawks have always thrived on, and that has historically pushed them to levels of greatness that they were not themselves aware of being capable of achieving.
