Monday Mourning Quarterback

I've been this sad, and I've been this tired, but I've never dealt with a combination of the two.



Super Bowl XL aired at 12:30 am here, and was not finished until 4:30 am. We did not see the commercials, and the announcers were dubbed in Italian. The Aussie Pub was crowded, the television was tiny, but the fans were there as best they could be.

I was proud of the Oregonians and Californians and Massachusettians that not only filled the place, but put up with the high-fives and swear words at that horrid hour of the night. We nestled in a makeshift hawk nest in the back on both sides of the miniature wall. We took copies of the Seattle Times, Seattle P-I, King County Journal, USA Today from the Monday after the NFC championship that my family sent me and cut them up and taped them to the walls. It was the best we could do. Of the crowd, there were about six or seven of us that felt the full effect, including Taylor, Katie, and Tim (fingers pictured below).



At 2 o'clock, the bar was legally closed. The curtains were drawn and we were not allowed to raise our voices above a hush for the entire second half so that we would not wake the apartments above us who would call the police and raise all sorts of trouble. I didn't truly know anyone with me (not like the people I usually watch the game with) and I couldn't fully trust them despite the sharpied "12" on their hand or the makeshift Seahawk apparel. This, combined with the insomnia, made the entire experience seem false; I'm still waiting for the game to be played.

The game I saw was a bit of a nightmare. Shaun Alexander was nameless. Jerramy Stevens was dropping passes. Penalties were flying every time there was hope. You knew you weren't watching a comeback, but rather another dramatic twist in the Steeler's victory story. This was exactly what the Super Bowl would've been like if the 2003 or 2004 Seahawks had somehow made it, only we would've expected it of them. These were the 'Hawks we'd thought we'd never remember.

Now comes the conspiracy theory. The holding penalites on special teams were a pain and maybe legit, but the pass interference call on Darrell Jackson's touchdown was extremely questionable and the Rothelsburger helmet touchdown was like a bad joke (this already happened to the Hawks in a playoff game against the Jets when Vinny Testeverde's helmet crossed the goal line and the refs saw it as the ball, thus prompting the NFL to begin using video replay the next season). They were terrible calls that changed the game. It was like having east-coast bias there on the field, the only place where the game can be the game and the Seahawks could finally silence the critics. You could see the atrocity when the refs got greedy and tried to rule Matt Hasselbeck's drop at the end of the run a fumble. There was no logical explanation, and the play was reversed after wasted time. They just lost their heads.

It was all too much for the Seahawks. There was too much time to break the momentum and the Steelers were just good enough. It was Seattle against the world and it was just too much.

Let's see the October - January Seahawks again. In the meantime, I've been trying my best to console the other Seattlites. When you love one of our teams, you promise you'll get hurt. It comes with the territory. And while they cried and kicked the ancient walls of Siena last night, I continue to walk slowly with my chin on my chest today, and probably tomorrow.

Bittersweet Symphony.