We feel like this puppy today.
We feel like this puppy today. Kelly O

Oh, hey deja vu. The Seahawks lost a devastating game against an undefeated opponent despite having a well earned fourth-quarter lead. A flurry of points and a great play in the third quarter were followed up with near-misses and blown coverages in the fourth. Potential game-sealing catches were dropped, and runs were called back due to penalties. Then, when the Seahawks were one stop away from a win, the opposing quarterback made the throw of his life to a wide open tight end and it’s game over. Just another week of nonsense Seahawky business.

This week’s disaster manifested in a 27-23 loss to the Carolina Panthers. This one happened at home, against a Panthers team that, while undefeated, is not the same caliber as the Packers or Bengals. This was, to put it bluntly, real, real bad. The Seahawks are 0-3 against three undefeated teams with a combined 17-0 record, and they led in the fourth quarter of all of those games. What can you even say to that? You can say a bunch of swear words. Lord knows I did. But really? I might be totally fucking crazy, but I still think this team is good.

Marshawn Lynch looked okay returning from injury, Jimmy Graham went for more than 100 yards, the defense produced a couple picks, and the Seahawks dominated the turnover battle. Without Bobby Wagner you had to know Panthers tight end Greg Olsen would feast, but the Seahawks did manage to shut down the rest of the Panthers' passing game. And yet here we are. Here we fucking are.

And yeah, the offensive line is trash. And yes, if things continue this way, at the end of the season one or both of the team’s coordinators will have to go, so as to purge the bad juju from the locker room. And no, Earl Thomas does not lack heart now, or whatever garbage is going to be spewed on talk radio this week. Because really? The team is doing what it wants for 80 percent of football games against the best teams in the league. So what’s the takeaway? WHAT DO WE TAKE AWAY?

The takeaway here is that nothing means anything. Set up enough monkeys pounding away on typewriters and they’ll write you a series of fourth quarter meltdowns as devastating as the Seahawks' last seven games. I know this is true, because I’ve been reading the Monkey-Smash Seahawks Gazette since I was five years old, and let me tell you, a disproportionate number of issues tells this same stupid story. Pete Carroll’s editorial shift was great for the paper for a while, but it’s like the old expression goes: Monkeys gonna smash.

So let’s choose to view this run of devastation another way: Right now the Seahawks are the best at losing. Oh my god, when they lose? They don’t fuck around. They don’t go out and get blown out. They don’t let the opponent kneel out the game. No fucking way. They lose bloody and broken in front of their wives. The Seahawks are the Red Viper, and they turn all of their opponents into the Mountain, and while no one wants to be on team Red Viper, fuck it, we’re on team Red Viper, and that’s better than being on team Some Guy Who No One Has Ever Heard Of.

The Seahawks have no eyes right now, and we might as well enjoy that because the alternative is a deep wallowing that goes beyond the purpose of sports. I wallowed plenty in the aftermath of the Super Bowl. That’s different. Everyone was watching, and we were so close, and I was genuinely depressed for a solid week because of other men’s athletic failures. It was terrible, but it was understandable (maybe?).

This is week six of the regular season, and the Seahawks are still very much alive. They just have to catch the Vikings to squeeze their way into the playoff picture. This is not the time for anything other than derisive laughter. We’re not beholden to Russell Wilson’s robot-talk; every week doesn’t have to have championship-level preparation. We can laugh off this garbage.

Also, of course, the Red Viper wasn’t really the best at losing, and if we’re being honest, the Seahawks are also not the best at losing, either. The best at losing? That’s Jim Harbaugh. Having turned around a moribund Michigan program at a breakneck pace, his Wolverines were ten seconds away from a huge win over undefeated Michigan State—a win that would have vaulted the Wolverines into playoff contention. Then this happened:

College football is trash in so many ways, so I only bring this up to point out that we could have it so much worse. We could be Jim Harbaugh, who didn’t win a Super Bowl two years ago. Remember when the Seahawks won that Super Bowl two years ago? That was cool.