Random Thought: Super Bowl XLVIII or Super Bowl XLIX?

I know everyone's getting ramped up for the season to start tonight, and this tread probably would have had more traction about 3 months ago in the dog days of the offseason, but I have to ask all my fellow Hawk brethren this question to see if I'm in the minority on my thinking or not.

Anyway.

The question: If you could pick between the universe that we're in now (aka. the one where Sherman makes the tip play against Kaepernick and Crabtree, and we go on to Super Bowl XLVIII and throttle Denver—then lose to the Pats how we did in SB XLIX) -OR- live a universe where Sherman just misses on the tip, Kaepernick completes the pass to Crabtree and SF wins, and we don't make it to Super Bowl XLVIII, but we go on to play against the Pats this last year in Super Bowl XLIX and Russell's pass to Lockette is a completion for the win, which universe would you choose to live in?

Part of me wants to believe I would choose the one we're in now and have things go as they went. The Tip will go down in Seahawks lore as probably the greatest play in the history of the franchise. Losing to division rivals on your home turf in a Conference championship game would be devastating at the time that it happened (especially not knowing that you're guaranteed to win the next one)...

BUT, a bigger part of me, I think, would give up playing in Super Bowl XLVIII for an amazing win in Super Bowl XLIX (don't hate me) over the almost universally-despised Patriots. Maybe it's because I probably always feel like dirt when I think of XLIX and what could have been....and obviously, if we're picking fake universes to live in, I'll take the one where I'm insanely rich, have supermodel girlfriends, and the Hawks won both (all three!) Super Bowls they've been in.

Which one would you pick?

....eh, that's all. Is it Sunday at 11am MST yet?!! AGGH! I need real football!!!

#GoHawks

I'm fine with how things are in reality. We blew out one of the league's golden boys while stomping on our most hated rival to get to that game. We beat another of the league's golden boys on the way to the next SB, and nearly took out the third golden boy while operating with a defense that was limping. That's elite level stuff.

As said above, it is pretty tough to beat our situation. We were one yard away from becoming back-to-back champs with half of our defense playing. The fact that we made it that far shows how far this team has come since the early days of Pete Carroll.

I mean think about it, we were amost flippin back-to-back champs. It's been a hell of a long time since that's happened. And we were one frickin yard away from completing that feat.

I don't care how the game ended. I celebrate the fact we were almost back-to-back champs. I'd rather be in now than a year go.

peachesenregalia":3ji7zif2 said:

Disagree. it was very sweet curb-stomping our former divisional rival and bane of our existence in the biggest game of the year. Wouldn't trade it for anything. The look on horse-teeth's face was priceless.

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100% agree. I wouldn't change it for anything. Not even that final play in XLIX.

peachesenregalia":1k9me9ij said:

Aros":1k9me9ij said:

peachesenregalia":1k9me9ij said:

Disagree. it was very sweet curb-stomping our former divisional rival and bane of our existence in the biggest game of the year. Wouldn't trade it for anything. The look on horse-teeth's face was priceless.

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100% agree. I wouldn't change it for anything. Not even that final play in XLIX.

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I mean, just think of all the years of frustration seeing that arrogant equine bastard's smiling face when they were beating us routinely. to have this kind of payback, by utterly humiliating both him and NFL golden boy Forehead Manning in front of hundreds of millions of people....you can't do a whole lot better than that.

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Ya watching Manning get completely throttled was hilarious. For what alot of people claim to be the best QB of this generation, having our D completely dismantle that offense was glorious. It also was one of the few games in the whole Wilson era where I could just sit back and enjoy the last 1 1/2 quarters or so and party because we JUST WON THE SUPERBOWL. We rarely blow teams out and its always a heartattack game

You could not script a better playoff run than what we saw in XLVIII.

SEA/SF was the biggest rivalry in professional sports at that very moment. The hate between the teams stretched far beyond normal division rivalry. It was the rubber match for the season. And the teams played a CLASSIC under the lights.

The Super Bowl was a party from start to finish. The perfect coda to a perfect NFCCG finish.

Wouldn't change a thing.

I was able to attend my first game at C-link a couple years ago.
That game was the NFCCG vs the 9ers.


Are you freaking crazy ?
I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.
Not even for tickets to the Super Bowl that followed.
GoHawks :{)

I agree with you all who say keep it as is.

We've made it to two (2!) SBs in the last 2 years. The parallel universe would only have us in one. I'll take this reality.

Keep as is. As mentioned above, the joy in pushing Peyton and Elway's rubber faces into the dirt along with all the media experts who predicted a Broncos win/Broncos blowout win (and there were many) was too glorious to swap.

Plus, y'know, the Patriots aren't exactly getting to celebrate being champions right now, so the sting as somewhat lessened this time around.

Oh and I was at XLVIII, where a sporting pinnacle turned into a party 12 seconds into the second half.

SB48 was a dream season and would not change a thing. If the tip doesn't happen 49ers prob win and Harbaugh resigns with them for another 4-5 years. Absolute butterfly effect.

12thbrah":31p6p6pq said:

SB48 was a dream season and would not change a thing. If the tip doesn't happen 49ers prob win and Harbaugh resigns with them for another 4-5 years. Absolute butterfly effect.

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Very good point.

No way, Super Bowl 48 was the season of the ages for Hawks fans. Even before the season started I knew we were in for something special.

Plus, it was amazing beating on Denver's butt all game long in the Super Bowl!

Having attended XLVIII and watched the Hawks leave no doubt as to their greatness was a tremendous experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. As Eric Johnson said in his blog from earlier this year, "it wasn't always like this," and I'm more than happy to take the bad with the good because this is the best stretch in Seahawks history.

Reality now. We've been on a wild ride since 2012 with some of the most exciting football you could watch and ultimately our luck ran out at the very end. I can live with that.

Also, within the context of a game's entertainment value - it was like an entire 3 day trip to vegas condensed into 4 hours. I would have loved a win but the preceding 59 minutes of football were enthralling.

I personally would expand on this theme and ask what if we had actually beat Atlanta the year before? I feel we were a better team than the Niners then (as now) and think a Seahawks VS Ravens Superbowl (win or lose) was within reach, if not win-able. To even entertain the thought of going to three (or four?) straight super bowls would have been unthinkable 5 years ago! This is, even with all the contract issues at the moment, the Golden age of Seahawk football. We Played what will go down in history as one of the greatest Superbowls ever in XLIX and even with the outcome I would be hesitant to change that. That being said I agree with others that finally getting to "Monkey Stomp" the Broncos in XLVIII was long past due payback for all those years in the AFC west!

If I had to pick one of the two Super Bowls to win, it would have been XLIX. I hate the Patriots (even before the game) way more than I hate the Broncos.

The only thing that puts 2013 over 2014 is the NFCCG against SF. I was living in 49ers territory then, and if we would have lost that game, I never would have heard the end of it. I could have lived with losing to GB last season.

peachesenregalia":1t4619un said:

Disagree. it was very sweet curb-stomping our former divisional rival and bane of our existence in the biggest game of the year. Wouldn't trade it for anything. The look on horse-teeth's face was priceless.

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:13:

Plus, the way we lost last February is only motivation for this team to make a 3rd straight Superbowl, and to win it this time.

If we had won on that pass last winter, this team would be struggling to keep it's focus, people would have held out or signed elsewhere, it would have been the Credit and Blame Game.

volsunghawk":xhgsh0u7 said:

I'm fine with how things are in reality. We blew out one of the league's golden boys while stomping on our most hated rival to get to that game. We beat another of the league's golden boys on the way to the next SB, and nearly took out the third golden boy while operating with a defense that was limping. That's elite level stuff.

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Really not sure why this thread is continuing after this post and Peaches. About all that needed to be said.

Well, except this I guess:

:13:

DYLcurry59":ww56ysk1 said:

If I had to pick one of the two Super Bowls to win, it would have been XLIX. I hate the Patriots (even before the game) way more than I hate the Broncos.

The only thing that puts 2013 over 2014 is the NFCCG against SF. I was living in 49ers territory then, and if we would have lost that game, I never would have heard the end of it. I could have lived with losing to GB last season.

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That's the only reasoning I could see for preferring the OP's alternate reality over what actually happened. For someone to want the alternate, they really, really have to hate the Pats.

This reality. #1 defense kickin' the hair off the #1 offense of all-time in demoralizing fashion. Living in Colorado, I would've never heard the end of it if if the reality was reversed.