Feel free, Seahawks fans, to pine for the gilded football days days of your youth. In 2020.
As you may have noticed during the pandemic, time has lost shape and form.
If you can see through the mists to the past fall, you may recollect that the Seahawks started the season 5-0. It was the wildest time, the offense making #LetRussCook into a national phenomenon, while the defense staggered about as if blindfolded in a room void of sound and doors.
Various theories were offeredabout how these things happened. But almost none of them included a vital aspect: The schedule.
Granted, it’s hard to know about schedule strength when all teams are in mid-brawl. But since the season concluded, it’s possible to see more clearly. Since the NFL produced its 2021 schedule Wednesday, it seems a good time to tell the truth about a year ago:
Seattle’s early schedule was rich in sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.
None of the first five opponents ended up making the playoffs.
That’s like starting play on the 667-yard 16th hole at Firestone on the green in two.
- Atlanta: W, 38-25. Finish: 4-12
- New England: W, 35-30. Finish: 7-9
- Dallas: W, 38-31. Finish: 6-10
- Miami: W, 31-23. Finish: 10-6
- Minnesota: W, 27-26. Finish: 7-9
In hindsight, the road win at Miami was a seasonal apex, even if the Dolphins didn’t make the postseason. But the larger fact was that the front end of the schedule helped generate something of a false positive. So did the grand good fortune of playing all the NFC East teams, one of the worst groupings since Spinal Tap played Celebrity Jeopardy!
The foregoing helps set-up the single-word summary of the 2021 Seattle schedule: Payback.
The schedulers seemed to have understood the Seahawks needed some gristle after all that whipped cream.
Coaches love to say the schedule doesn’t matter that much, and players always offer the crutch bromide of any given Sunday. These remarks are piffle. Every year the NFL tries to legislate parity, and every year, random currents and tides churn a sport contested only 16 — or now, 17 — times a season.
As former Seahawks coach Chuck Knox said, “It’s not always who you play, it’s when you play ’em.”
Despite all the good works in the Seahawks’ 12-4 record, including 3-3 in the NFC West, they drew their worst matchup in the playoffs, the Los Angeles Rams, and were thrashed.
This season, the bad stuff comes early — four of the first six games are on the road against what appear in May to be stout outfits.
The season opener is at Indianapolis Sept. 12, then Sept. 26 at Minnesota, Oct. 3 at San Francisco and Oct. 17 at Pittsburgh. Toss in two home games against 2020 playoff teams, the Titans and the Rams, and the season’s first third is a barbed-wire toothbrush.
Particularly odious is the draw of the Steelers game, which the Seahawks were assigned as the 17th foe in the new season-lengthening plan adopted in March after collective bargaining. (All NFC teams will be on the road for the extra game in 2021; in 2022, the AFC goes on the road.)
Yes, QB Ben Roethlisberger, the only relic remaining in the NFL from the Seahawks’ first Super Bowl appearance, is doddering and may need Gorilla Glue to stay together for four quarters. But the Steelers did make the playoffs, and remember, the Seahawks’ most recent loss was to a team led by Jared Goff, who completed nine passes and was deemed bad enough to be exiled to Detroit.
So the Seahawks are hosed by the schedule-maker. They were due.
Without question, the highlight is another game with the Packers, yhis one in Green Bay Nov. 14. These guys always seem to play compelling games, in large part because Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers, among QBs who have played more than four seasons, have the only ratings in NFL history above 100.
They also have generated more off-season controversy than any QBs who weren’t traded or didn’t hire every female masseuse in Texas.
That’s why I’m calling this matchup the Joe Walsh Bowl.
It’s named for the Eagles’ rocker whose hit song, “Life’s Been Good to Me,” contained a memorable lyric that captured the tormented lives of these two, despite each having been a Super Bowl champion, consistently successful in nearly every endeavor on the field and in life, while amassing fortunes that compare to small European principalities:
“I can’t complain but sometimes I still do.”
They are 4-4 against each other, including playoffs, and have never won on the other’s home field. They may never come this way again.
28 Comments
And yet the Athletic called the schedule the easiest in the league by the metric of average anticipated wins per team. Go figure.
The Seahawks’ schedule does lighten up, just not in the first month.
What’s your beef with the Sounders? They played an epic match last night against a team right behind them at the top of the table. Our goalkeeper gets injured in stoppage time,, we are out of subs, a local boy comes in to clear the net – we gain three points. But hey, the Seahawk schedule came out. Wow:)
Yes, a compelling game. The last 20 minutes high drama.
The goalie sub w/Roldan was something I hadn’t seen before.
The NFL dominates in December….and May. That’s just how it is.
I think you can add 10 other months.
No beef, Tim. I enjoy the Sounders, and I know what most readers enjoy most of the time. Wish I could be in two places at once. Maybe I should hire you.
Hey Art – loving the Joe Walsh pull – Nailed it! (I remember selling that album in old DJ’s Sound City). A lot of wisdom in that old rocker’s noggin.
I never felt comfortable with last season, the team really just hanging in there, and not a certifiable 12-4 by any normal standard. Good time for an awakening, and the moves on defense gave the group a good test run to show they can gel, even with a significant turnover in cornerback. I think the D has a chance to be in the upper echelon if they can stay healthy.
You are so right to show an appreciation for the Hawks-GB rivalry – while Rodgers has become a bit of a villain from his treatment of Wilson (which may have only been that once after the NFC championship in 2014/15), there is always a firm respect for the reigning MVP, and the challenges those two teams/QBs give each other. I would say that will be a loss for all if GB loses number 12. GB can’t possibly be the same. Sad. Who knows – maybe Rodgers has an eye on becoming the new Alex Trebeck (he did well), or he goes to Denver, stays healthy, and we meet him in the SB in a year or two.
Might have been among the weakest 12-4 teams in recent NFL history, A little like the Steelers’ 11-0 start.
GB-SEA with these two QBs has been a delight. I hope people appreciate it.
The Eagles, Don Henley and Joe Walsh in the tops of my favorites.
I was not surprised that the Hawks tanked in the playoffs. There was a bit too much in winning ugly.
Granted the Hawks were not going far in the playoffs, BUT to lose to those two QB’s, one with a broken thumb, was a complete embarrassment. Maybe the low point in Hawks history, and they have had a lot of low points.
The low point…..November 4, 1979. Rams 24 Seahawks 0. Seahawks -30 yards passing and +23 yards rushing for a net total yards of -7.
You’re right. That game has been enshrined into the NFL’ s Hall of Shame.
I agree. Prompted Jack Patera’s famed eight-second press conference.
“I had a rough night, and I hate the f****** Eagles, man!” (The Big Lebowski)
…and I wouldn’t hold out much hope for the Creedence.
True. I also wonder what would have happened if Adams was healthy enough to play pass coverage.
I think this can be filed with CFB preseason rankings as SWAG (scientific wild a$$ guess). At the beginning of last season, those first five games looked pretty tough with the only cupcake being Miami. Turned out it was the exact opposite. As someone else mentioned, the Athletic has their schedule being the easiest, which is hard to fathom by simply being in the NFC West, so I guess this comment could be summed up with a big shrug emoji.
All preseason schedule speculation is cotton candy. But we’ve all eaten cotton candy at least once. You’ve had your fill, right?
“Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, everything that I feel when we’re together…”
(Leslie Gore)
Agree! Excellent summation, Art, with nice musical references – like Seals and Crofts (“we may never pass this way again”). But the Leslie Gore reference is apropos to a great degree in the sports world. She sang one of the most famous feminist lines in music history and, ironically, it also stands as the ultimate line for professional sports players: “You don’t own me”. You don’t own me. You go, girl. R.I.P.
I didn’t think anyone would get Seals & Croft. Well done.
You’re too easy with rock lyrics.
Since we’re quoting philosopher Joe Walsh, let’s not forget he’s gifted popular music with one of the greatest album titles of all time: The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get.
Never understood what it means, but, it’s still far less-nonsensical after all these years than whatever Rodgers and Wilson have been griping about from their respective catbird seats this off-season.
Forgot that album title. Thrilled to know I wasn’t alone in not knowing what it meant. But it sounded cool.
“Barbed wire toothbrush,” ugh!! The pain is instant and immense.
Good. I hope for visceral response.