Retro Seahawks resurface

DETROIT – There may be worse acts opening for the Rolling Stones on their current tour.

Motley Crue. Metallica. Belushi and, ugh, Aykroyd – the Blues Fakers.

But the Seattle Seahawks set a tough standard to meet Sunday night, and a tough legacy to live down this morning and beyond.

The National Football League brought in retro rock for halftime of Super Bowl XL, the Stones banging their way through a quick medley and playing younger than Seattle’s rookie linebackers.

For the game, alas, the league brought in retro Hawks.

You know the ones we’re talking about. The third-and-long giver-uppers. The untimely penalty forehead-slappers. The missed field goal gut-rippers. The play-not-made momentum-sappers. The banana peel steppers.

Those Seahawks.

The ones who short-circuited recent seasons of promise by letting opportunities, and entire games, get away. The same ones who so remarkably turned up AWOL this season, and took the Northwest on a thrill ride 30 years in the making.

Say it together: The thrill is gone. At least for now.

Having put themselves in position time and again to take charge of their Super Bowl showdown with the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Seahawks from their very first possession trotted out the greatest backfires of Wile E. Coyote to blow the moment to smithereens. By the time Mick Jagger’s britches were flirting with a wardrobe malfunction during “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” Seattle had spotted the Steelers not only that four-point Vegas spread but the notion that whatever misstep they might make, the Seahawks were going to make three.

So the Seahawks plodded out of Ford Field very much XL losers, 21-10, as the Steelers finally collected their ring for the thumb – 26 years after filling the other four fingers.

It was a proud moment for the ownership Rooneys, one of the NFL’s foundation families, and a deserved reward for coach Bill Cowher, one of the league’s admirable survivors. And surely it was a proper – and on-time – departure for “the Bus”, running back Jerome Bettis, who happily collected his bauble and rolled off into retirement.

And surely it was nirvana for what seemed like 90 percent of the Ford Field crowd of 68,206 twirling those yellow towels, which once signified something, though it hardly matters anymore.

But for the Seahawks, there was only the chagrin of reeling up a bare hook with neither bait nor bass attached.

“Any loss is tough to swallow,” said defensive end Grant Wistrom, “because we know that we could have beat this football team. It wasn’t like we were outplayed today, but they didn’t make the mistakes that we did.”

The Seahawks didn’t settle for just letting their Super Bowl rings slip off their fingers and down a sewer grate. They dove in after and, not finding the lost jewelry, decided to swim some laps.

Where to start? Penalties? Try holding calls on Chris Gray and Sean Locklear that wiped out red-zone opportunities, and Darrell Jackson’s end zone pushoff – well, the ref thought so – that erased a touchdown.

“Let me say this,” said coach Mike Holmgren, who obviously had issues with some of the calls, “it was uncharacteristic of my team to have that many penalties.”

Drops? Tight end Jerramy Stevens redefined the art form, not exactly the put-up performance from the biggest talking Seahawk of Super Bowl week.

“I can’t remember the last time I played this poorly,” he said, not realizing if there was such a time, there wouldn’t have been a this time.

Misfires? Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck had a bunch, though the fourth-quarter interception by Ike Taylor is the one he really wants back.

Even the good came with the bad. When Kelly Herndon picked off a pass just in front of the Pittsburgh goal line and returned it 76 yards to set up the only Seahawks touchdown, defensive tackle Rocky Bernard pulled a hamstring running down the field to block Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who seems to have a knack for defending his own picks.

“We kept getting rhythm and momentum and getting them on their heels,” said center Robbie Tobeck, “and we could have knocked them out. But we didn’t throw that extra punch.”

Actually, they did – but it was Moe throwing, Larry ducking and Curly taking it in the chops.

It would be gracious to say the Steelers were clearly superior. It would also be a fib. Roethlisberger was sub-ordinary, motormouth Joey Porter was a non-factor and “the Bus” was strictly a local.

But they did make three great plays and didn’t screw up the rest.

There is the silver lining of a 15-4 season, this first Super Bowl trip and the rebirth of Seahawk fever in the Northwest that went 20 years dormant. As Holmgren noted, “We’ve established something pretty good.”

But Holmgren has his Super Bowl ring – won at Green Bay – and has been back twice since. At least one of his players – also a Super Bowl veteran – better understood what was lost Sunday evening.

“For me, it really hurts,” said Tobeck, barely able to hold back tears. “You know, the last time I played in the Super Bowl (with Atlanta in 1999) and we lost, I felt like I had years ahead of me – I had a career ahead of me.

“But I’ll be 36 in March and I don’t know how much time I have left. The finality of it all, that question mark, makes it a hard pill to swallow.”

That and the fact that the Seahawks played their worst when it counted the most.