Atmosphere different in Detroit
DETROIT – The banners that hung from streetlights and waved above Jefferson Avenue were gone, the foot traffic reduced to only a few pedestrians Saturday night.
There was no fancy Super Bowl logo illuminating the front of the General Motors Building, nor was there a never-ending mass of reporters and celebrities coming and going from the nearby Renaissance Center.
The only sports celebrations in downtown Detroit this Saturday night involved the WNBA title the Shock won that afternoon and the thousands of televisions tuned in to the Tigers-Minnesota Twins baseball game.
Signs that there was a football game coming to town were nowhere in sight.
The Seattle Seahawks were back in the city of their greatest disappointment, and it was a lot different than they remembered.
Just seven months and four days earlier, the Seahawks lost 21-10 to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XL.
Now they’re back, hoping the ‘06 season kicks off better than the way the ‘05 campaign ended.
“How last season ended was sort of a sour ending for us,” quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said last week. “And now it’s a start of a new season, a chance to start all over again and hopefully have a better result.”
This time around, the stakes aren’t as high. When the Seahawks face the Detroit Lions today – kickoff is at 10 a.m. PDT – there won’t be any trophies or gaudy rings awaiting the winner.
Sure, the Seahawks would like to get off to a good start. But last year’s season-opening loss at Jacksonville proved Super Bowl teams can stub their toes.
“Last year we played very poorly in the first week and kind of fixed it and then played really well the next 15 games,” Hasselbeck said. “Obviously, you’d like to start off well and win that first one. It’s going to be a tough one, and hopefully we get it done.”
“We’re not the NFC champs anymore. It’s a new season,” defensive tackle Chartric Darby said. “It’s a new year, a new beginning, and we’ve got to do new things.
“Right now the title is sitting there for anybody in the NFC to win it. We’re going to try our best … and see what we can do.”
That clean slate breeds plenty of optimism around the league this time of year. While Seahawks fans are looking to go back to the Super Bowl – this time, it’s in Miami – even supporters of teams like the Houston Texans, San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers still have a glimmer of hope.
Even fans of the beleaguered Lions franchise have that unfamiliar sense of optimism now.
“The expectations of every team, in every city, and every fan, everyone thinks, ‘Hey, this could be our year,’ ” Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said.
The NFL has had plenty of worst-to-first stories in recent seasons, and this year will probably provide at least one more. But for the teams that expect to go to the postseason, the start of the regular season is a welcome first step on the ladder of opportunity.
“We have to prove to ourselves that we’re as good as we were last year,” running back Shaun Alexander said. “Sometimes you catch a wave, then it crashes. But we want to build something that’s really special and is going to last for some years.”