A sad little Seahawks fan
A sad little Seahawks fan Nate Gowdy

It was hard as fuck to watch this Seahawks game in the wake of Tuesday’s election. Sports exist as a proxy for real world emotion, but I don’t have any interest in wasting the energy that I have after the election on despising Tom Brady. Hating Tom Brady feels quaint and pointless right now. Moving on to root for the Seahawks felt eerie and false.

Which isn’t to say I don’t hate Tom Brady, both for the time he beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, as well as for the past 18 months when he’s supported Donald Trump in the most pathetic fashion possible. Seriously, how fucking cowardly do you have to be to show your support for a politician by displaying that politician’s paraphernalia, but then refuse to answer even the most benign follow question on the topic? Awful. Even Jay Cutler has the courage to own his garbage politics.

That said, weirdly, given the way the election broke on Tuesday, with the whiplash of expectations as the Midwest returns came in, the closest emotional corollary I had to draw on was the Seahawks loss to the Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX. After getting past the embarrassment of needing a football game to process the potential rise of fascism in America, the difference between that game and this election energized me. While the Super Bowl ended and cannot be re-adjudicated, there is work that can be done especially at the local and state level during the next… god… however long Trump clings to power… to make people’s lives better, to protect our neighbors, and defend our values. Despite how they feel, sports aren’t life, and life is not sports, and that’s good I guess because they throw each other into relief.

Also good? The Seahawks on Sunday. Really, really good.

The Patriots are really good, but the Seahawks exploited their weaknesses on defense by putting together an (almost) complete offensive performance. The 31-24 margin underrates how good the Seahawks were on offense. Damn near everything worked (except for the WTF red zone fades to Jermaine Kearse). Aside from some classic Jermaine Kearse nonsense, though? The Seahawks’ offense was unreal.

Rookie running back C.J. Prosise was the Seahawks breakout star, exploiting the Patriots linebackers in both the passing and running game. Prosise probably cannot be an every down running back; he's a converted wide receiver and doesn’t have the build to absorb that sort of damage. But with Thomas Rawls coming back and Christine Michael available as a change of pace, Prosise’s emergence bodes really well for the team going forward as yet another explosive option.
Oh, and Doug Baldwin had three touchdowns and didn't poop out the ball in celebration any of those three times.

So that was a big win.

On the defensive side of the ball, while the pass rush wasn’t great with Michael Bennett absent against a resurgent Patriots offensive line, Kam Chancellor’s return made a huge difference. The New England Patriots have two incredible tight ends in Bennett’s brother Martellus and Rob Gronkowski, and while they got theirs, Chancellor limited their output with a number of exceptional plays in coverage. The Seahawks held Tom Brady to zero passing touchdowns while forcing his first interception of the year. It was his first zero touchdown game with a pick since 2007. Very good.

In aggregate, this was a classic Carroll-era Seahawks win. Heading into the game, fans worried the Hawks would lose by more than 10 for the first time in the Wilson-era. Coming out of the game, the question is who can stop the Seahawks on a march back towards the Super Bowl?

Well, I guess there's also the bigger question which is, how the fuck do we integrate sports fandom into our lives in the face of the rise of fascism? This is not a fun question. I don’t know. But it's a question worth considering, as we all have to reflect on how our lives may change in the coming years. Not fun. Not a fun blog post.