Allen Does His Part; Now It’S All Holmgren
Jerry Rice’s fumble that wasn’t against Green Bay last week?
Makeup call.
In roundabout fashion, it was payback for the Seattle Seahawks. Ambushed by the desperado Phil Luckett Gang against the New York Jets one month ago, the Seahawks bellyached about referee incompetence costing them a spot in the playoffs - which, upon further review, turned out not to be the case as the season played out.
As it happens, however, referee incompetence figures to get them into next year’s playoffs - and possibly many playoffs to come.
The no-call on Rice’s fumble put a premature end to Green Bay’s season and accelerated the events that led to Mike Holmgren being introduced as the executive vice president/general manager/head coach/grand omnipotent savior of the Seahawks on Friday.
Who knows? Say the refs get it right and Green Bay survives another week. Perhaps Holmgren interviews in Baltimore first on the way back from yesterday’s game in Atlanta and gets money-whipped by Art Modell instead.
Maybe the Pack gets on a roll and wins another Super Bowl, and Green Bay ownership decides to give Holmgren all the titles and slashes he wants - leaving the Seahawks to eenie-meenie over Ray Rhodes and, ugh, Dom Capers.
Instant replay, hell. Love those zebras.
It seems to be pretty much unanimous that the hiring of Holmgren is the best thing to happen to the Seahawks since, well, since the Seahawks happened.
Oh, OK, maybe not unanimous. Exception noted, Mr. Erickson.
But after a decade of ennui and inertia, the Seahawks suddenly seem purged - the plague of Ken Behring a distant memory, though it was just three years ago that Evil Bubba was backing up the moving vans in Kirkland.
The Seahawks hired themselves not just a coach, or even a coach-GM.
They hired themselves a hood ornament.
Because he has a Super Bowl ring, because he returned the Packers to where only Vince Lombardi had ever led them, because he birthed this Cheesehead nonsense and because he learned at the knee of Bill Walsh, Mike Holmgren has made himself into an almost mythic figure - myths taking far less time to crystallize in the National Football League than they once did. After all, it’s not as if the Seahawks landed George Halas, is it?
In any case, the club may as well scrap the logo and just put Holmgren’s profile on the helmets.
If he is not the last piece of the puzzle, you can at least make out the picture now.
It’s curious, though, how Seattle’s sporting history with coaching maestros is being conveniently ignored in the rush to buy season tickets - and to print playoff tickets.
Holmgren is hardly the first ringbearer/certified genius to find his way to our corner of the world, and yet we are still decidedly championship poor.
What success did Bill Russell and K.C. Jones, Hall of Famers both, actually achieve with the Sonics? What impact did Dick Williams - who, arguably, should be in the Hall of Fame, too - have on the numbing mediocrity of the Mariners? Tom Flores won a Super Bowl just like Mike Holmgren, and proceeded to drag the Seahawks through the Mirer.
The one guy who brought with him the cachet of Having Won It All Someplace Else and actually succeeded in Seattle was Lou Piniella - and at the moment he is trying to rescue his paddle from the soiled waters of You-Know-What Creek.
Don’t misconstrue. If you’re a Seahawks fan, you have to love Mike Holmgren.
But you’d better love Paul Allen more.
The third wealthiest man in America has - with the help of his personal Richelieu, Bob Whitsitt - saved the franchise from being whisked off to Los Angeles, strong-armed the citizenry into funding a new stadium and signed a boatload of talented free agents. Now, at last, he has thrown his millions at a coach with credibility and respect far beyond what Dennis Erickson could have commanded from players and opponents, even if Allen and Whitsitt had been of a mind to give him a long-term endorsement.
And they were never of such a mind. Erickson was always Behring’s choice, not theirs. This change didn’t happen a year ago only because Whitsitt preferred not to grant two jobs to any one man, and thus didn’t push it when Packers ownership indicated they wouldn’t allow other teams to approach Holmgren.
What convinced Whitsitt otherwise? Possibly the way the Seahawks, for all the talented additions, still performed so fitfully - in victories as well as defeats. Or possibly just meeting Holmgren face-to-face.
When Allen cut short a Costa Rica business trip to come home and put on the dog for Holmgren, it was clear how determined Seahawks management was to get this done.
“When it’s the right fit,” said Holmgren, who quickly canceled visits to Baltimore and Philadelphia, “it’s the right fit. You know it.”
Of course, $32 million sure makes the fit more snug. But even if, say, a Ken Behring would have ponied up for Mike Holmgren, would you feel as good about the Seahawks’ future as you do right now?
That kind of clout at the top is exactly what’s missing with the Mariners and why - along with baseball’s out-of-control salary structure - these two franchises seem to be heading in opposite directions.
Piniella has his faults, but he is a proven winner in the dugout. But above him is a general manager whose transactional judgment has been suspect, to be kind - and a phalanx of faceless owners who meddle at inopportune times and won’t dig deep enough to play the game to win.
We have already seen how deep Allen will dig. Now it’s time to see how high Holmgren can climb.