Hawks silently charge into playoffs

SEATTLE – If a team can quietly rampage into the playoffs, that’s what the Seahawks are doing.

You know, the Seattle Seahawks. The team tucked into the upper, outer corner of the country that last registered on the national scale two Super Bowls ago.

NFL fans from Maine to Maui know the wardrobe of Tom Brady better than they know this: Seattle is the only team besides the New England Patriots to have just clinched its fourth consecutive division title.

“We are kind of far away. Heck, we’re in Alaska almost,” said coach Mike Holmgren, who arrived at the league’s most far-flung outpost in 1999. “There’s a lot of stuff going on.”

Including in Seattle. Really.

While few outside this city have been paying attention, the league’s hottest team not in New England or Dallas has won five consecutive games. It’s a perfectly timed charge into another postseason during this, the golden era of Seattle football.

The Seahawks will play their eighth postseason game since 2004 next month, probably as the No. 3 seed in the NFC at home in the first round against whoever secures the last wild-card berth.

Seattle appeared in just eight playoff games in its first 28 years, from 1976-2003.

These five straight wins have come since the refreshingly candid Holmgren boldly announced to the league’s defenses that he would no longer really try to run the ball because Shaun Alexander was hurt and going nowhere, anyway. Holmgren declared he was placing the weight of the season upon Hasselbeck’s throwing arm.

“Really, looking back on it, I was trying to ram a square peg in a round hole,” he said.

Hawks sign Robinson

The Seahawks addressed a glaring problem during their five-game winning streak, signing veteran long snapper Jeff Robinson (University of Idaho/Ferris High) to replace the erratic Boone Stutz.

Robinson is a 14-year veteran who most recently played for the St. Louis Rams in 2005.