Some people are fans of the Seattle Seahawks. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Seattle Seahawks. This 2014 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group.
Your team: Seattle Seahawks
Your 2013 record: 13-3. Super Bowl champions. But trust me, you can win a Super Bowl and still suck, in a more ethereal and much more irritating way. Teams that win stuff are the worst.
Your coach: Pete Carroll, who oscillates between “benevolent CEO” and “paranoid sleazebucket” depending upon what day it is. I’m flummoxed. I’m gonna need him and Macklemore to get to the bottom of 9/11 so that I can render final judgment.
Your quarterback: Mini-Jeter, who got divorced this offseason. NOT SO PERFECT NOW, ARE YOU?!
It’s like she tried to eat him when he got drafted. And what about this, Russell?
Those children are clearly props. This is the year Russell Wilson gets fucking drilled. There are only so many times you can run across the field and back trying to find the open man on third down before a defense finally boxes you in and stomps you to death. After that, it’s T-Jack and a whiskey bottle for you Seahawks fans. Go past the big names like Wilson, Lynch, and Harvin, and this offense is surprisingly not all that deep.
Also, enough with the fucking barbershop ad. Make a different ad. Anything. I’ll take any other ad.
What’s new that sucks: Just your typical offseason free-agent pillaging of a Super Bowl champion. Say goodbye to Brandon Browner and his medicine cabinet. Chris Clemons: also gone. Golden Tate has also left town to come bang your wife. To shore up the minor defensive losses, the team signed Kevin Williams (who was the oldest Viking) and A.J. Jefferson (who was the worst Viking). Byron Maxwell takes Browner’s spot in the Legion of Boom. Terrelle Pryor is here to play Colin Kaepernick for the scout team. And that’s about it for the football stuff. Now let’s talk about Richard Sherman being a fuckhead!
You’re gonna see this video replayed 400 times this season, so you may as well get used to it now. I feel like Ferguson was a nice prelude to the resumption of our national conversation about Richard Sherman. Is he an asshole or a poet? A comedian or a THUG? Overpaid or REALLY overpaid? Regardless, I’m already sick of him and I hope his hair gets tangled up in a jet engine.
All those penalty flags you’ve seen this preseason? Those are for Sherman. The Seahawks won a title last year by holding on every play because they knew the refs wouldn’t call EVERY hold. And so this preseason represents the NFL’s effort to make sure teams stop interfering their way to a Super Bowl victory. The NFL basically just shut down Pete Carroll’s entire master strategy, like the Feds shutting down an illegal derivatives-trading firm. It’s back to handing out free buckets of ephedrine for you, Pete!
Also, we learned this offseason that Marshawn Lynch ropes off his Lambo (but not the actual doors to the car, which perplexes me):
Between this and the stupid Skittles thing, Marshawn Lynch is deemed cute by all us blogfolk, when it reality he’s almost certainly a grade-A prick who is now at the age when most running-back careers fall off a cliff.
What has always sucked: There are certain moments when winning a title brings out the absolute worst in a fanbase, and that was very much the case with you Seahawks fans. It’s telling that a Seahawks Super Bowl victory conjured up basically zero goodwill for Seattle. Up until the Seahawks title run, Seattle had one pro championship to its name, and that team was shipped out of town (and immediately fashioned into a perennial contender, a team that now serves as jerk-off material for the hoopsters of America). I should feel good for Seattle. I should feel good for Seattle fans.
I do not feel good for Seattle fans. Fuck Seattle fans.
This was not a gradual shift over from cute underdog to insufferable band of shitbags. This was zero to asshole in six seconds flat. Even Red Sox Nation waited a beat longer before turning intolerable. Even before the Super Bowl victory, Seahawks fans were annoying. They spent nearly a decade complaining about the refereeing in the Super Bowl loss to Pittsburgh (a game they weren’t all that close to winning anyway), and now they’re pre-bitching about this year’s reffing when lax rule enforcement just won them a title. And fuck your crowd-noise records. Congratulations on being the beneficiaries of cynical architecture. WOOOOO WOOOOO! I’m loud too, see? I’m just not yelling from inside a giant canoe.
And the 12 th Man is the worst. That was TAMU’s thing and you people know it. Don’t stand there pretending you invented it. If the 12th Man were an actual man, I would want him clubbed and tear-gassed. The 12th Man is a dick. No self-respecting person would ever, in a million years, rock a 12th Man jersey. Putting your own name on the back of a jersey is somehow more acceptable. That jersey is a pink Red Sox hat: a notorious piece of merch purchased exclusively by bandwagoning soccer moms.
Seattle people complain about everything: respect, the refs … they even complain about weather jokes, even though every stereotype about horrible rainy weather there is TRUE. Four more facts about Seattle to anger and horrify you:
1. People from Seattle don’t jaywalk, and they think it makes them cool.
2. From Marchman: “They have really precious bicycle clubs where people reconstruct incredibly heavy 1950s-style French bicycles and then use them to do rides where you go 1200 km in 90 hours and aren’t allowed, on average, to go below 15km/hr or above 30km/hr. Oooh, oooh, look, I get a period Alex Singer part so that I can look just like a Parisian newsboy!”
3. Starbucks coffee is objectively fucking terrible and now everyone charges three bucks for coffee because of them.
4. Again, Macklemore. That happened, America. Don’t pretend like you weren’t in on it. How did we let Macklemore happen? Fuck. Wagner: “Same Love is like Crash, if every character in Crash were played by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.”
What might not suck: Well, they’re the champs, and with Harvin at 100 percent, they’re probably better than they were a year ago. Whatever, SEAHAGS. Bet no one’s ever called you THAT!
Hear it from Seahawks fans!
Rich:
Niners-Hawks game two seasons ago (Sunday night football, two days before Xmas). The huge guy next to me leans over right before kickoff and says “by the way, I’m on meth.” He then proceeded to bear hug me and pick me up repeatedly. He grabbed my junk once, too. The cops finally took him out in the middle of the second quarter. “By the way, I’m on meth” should be the 12th Man’s official slogan.
Andrew:
Fuck Howard Schultz for an eternity.
Robbie:
There’s a guy at the games who, whenever the Seahawks are on offense, stands on his seat and does a really exaggerated “everyone be quiet!” motion. He always looks right at me. I wasn’t even sayin’ nothin’.
Simon:
You could punt your grandmother’s fine china and it’ll still take a beating better than Percy Harvin.
Ian:
Seahawks fans have long cultivated a persecution complex, because of a lack of sports media figures kissing the team’s ass. This does not take into account the fact that this team has ritually sucked, aside from a stretch in the mid-2000s when we ruled over a shit division. Really, we were just ignored because there was nothing worth paying attention to. No malice involved.
I thought we were finally done with that shit once we won the Super Bowl and national acclaim. But no, thanks to the renewed officiating emphasis on defensive illegal contact (which, let’s be honest, is a direct result of the Legion of Boom), we get to climb back up on the cross and pound the nails back in. It never ends.
Trevor:
A couple of weeks ago I was at a stoplight. Both cars ahead of me had 12 th Man car flags. One car had two, the other guy had four. Half way through the red light, the guy with four flags rolled down his window to chastise the guy with two for not being hardcore enough.
Taylor:
I love seeing Kam Chancellor nearly murder other guys on the field, even though I’m certainly concerned about concussions and player injuries. I love seeing memes that compare the instagrams of Russell Wilson with Colin Kapernick even though they’re obviously just hand-picked to be the most negative comparisons possible and are completely unfair. We’ve been waiting to be the assholes for decades, and now we are relishing it extra hard. It’s terrible, and yet... I can’t stop. None of my friends will talk about football with me anymore.
Mookie:
This Super Bowl win, which I admit was pretty damn great, has singlehandedly turned a fanbase, who to this day will still not shut the fuck up about Super Bowl XL and Bill Leavy, into a group of cocky, Starbucks-fueled morons who now think their team is an unstoppable force on their way to an era of uninterrupted dominance. This coming from the same city whose previously most successful franchise was the WNBA team.
Justin:
One guy around here didn’t start wearing his Seahawk hat until they made the playoffs. He also cheers for the Cardinals in baseball....I live in fuckin Maryland.
Kevin:
If you think soccer fans are insufferable, know that this city is home to the largest fan base in the MLS. To hear a Sounder fan explain the mind-boggling intricacies of “the beautiful game” is to experience the ninth circle of Dante’s hell.
Richard Sherman’s mom held an autograph signing session.
And fuck Jerome Bettis and Bill Leavy. Fuck the 12th man. Also, David Stern.
David:
Our fans and local media had no problem calling Marshawn Lynch a self centered prick for holding out. This despite the fact that it’s widely known that he will be a cap casualty at the end of the season to make room for Russell Wilson’s inevitable mega deal. For someone who has taken more hard hits and sacrificed his body for yards after contact, masked inefficiencies of Russell the last couple years as the Seahawks have maintained being a running team in a fantasy football passing league, put the team on his back in arguably the greatest run in postseason history and one of the best sports moments in our city’s history, and been one of the most productive backs despite an absolute shit offense line, you’d think he’d gain some sympathy for trying to ensure he has a little bit more financial security as he inches closer to the ominous 30th birthday as a running back.
But nope. Pete Carroll threw out the old cliché “a contract is a contract for a reason”, yet had no problem kicking captain (and Lynch’s best friend) Michael Robinson to the curb last training camp while he was battling liver and kidney issues.
Victor:
I’ve actually seriously heard Seattleites describe ‘Same Love’ as the “I Have a Dream Speech” of the gay community. Because ‘I Have a Dream’ would have totally had a greater impact if it was a shitty pop song written by Vanilla Ice…
Ryan:
Richard Sherman.
Chris:
I love my team but goddamnit, these fans can be obnoxious. Put on a number 12 jersey on Sunday, get drunk on Pyramid IPA, and scream your head off for four quarters. Because you’re on the team! You’re the 12th Man! They can’t win without you! Find the nearest person wearing an opponent’s jersey. They’re the enemy and must be constantly and mercilessly taunted over how much they suck for liking the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked. Go to Sherms new house to hang out because he’s your teammate.
Colin:
Our inferiority complex is so mature and refined that we as a group decided to care about holding a “world record” for loudest stadium, and then, when Kansas City took that “record” away from us, we responded by 1) calling them cheaters for having more people at the stadium (like there is a rulebook for this stupid record) and 2) immediately attempting to reclaim the “record” during the Saints game.
Robert:
Our current team is awesome, except for an oline comprised of human turnstiles, and an explosive but expensive player whose Wikipedia page looks like it’s off of Web MD.
Bill:
By far, the most annoying fan is the fat bastard you always see on TV who holds up the SEA - FENCE sign every game. SEA - FENCE? Literally NO ONE ever says this. Fuck that guy.
Isaac:
It would be bitter karma if in a couple years the NFL finds out we had vastly exceeded our cap during the 2013 season, have that entire season voided, our Lombardi trophy forfeited, our next 5 first-round draft picks revoked, and Pete Carroll conveniently slipping away to the CFL where he’ll become the second coming of Marc Trestman.
Mike:
I was at a bar with friends the Friday before the game and some guy wearing a 12th Fan jersey decided to strike up a conversation with my sister. His dagger pick up line: “I hear New York’s a really liberal town. You know, I’m really liberal.”
My sister said she voted for Romney (I’m not even sure if that’s true), and the guy got the message and walked away.
Jeff:
Today’s suckiest team is brought to you by the number 12!
Right now the “#12 – Fan” jersey is the 10 th best-selling jersey on NFL Shop. The 12 empire is an abomination. I don’t care if only Seattle cheers for the Seahawks, I don’t want to travel to other American cities and run into other “12's”. That’s it. Seattle should not be encouraging this petty bandwagon fandom with the marketing of a jersey that is on par with “#1 - DAD”
I live my life in baker’s dozens thanks to this garbage.
Nick:
The “best cornerback in football” is on the cover of Madden this year. I hope Richard Sherman has Paul George’s surgeon on speed dial.
Mitchell:
Harvin could actually stand to make a difference on the field if he stays healthy for a full season, but he won’t. Of course he won’t.
Alan:
Talk to a Seahawk fan and you’d think we were some sort of combination of the New York Yankees and Green Bay Packers. It’s like 1984, but instead of ‘We have always been at war with Eastasia” it’s “We have always been champions”.
Zach:
As someone who believes in the basic tenants of karma, man we are so fucked within 10 years or so. Did you know Richard Sherman went to Stanford? I think that bears repeating every time he acts like a moron. It’s OK, he went to Stanford, he’s definitely not an asshole!
We’re Red Sox fans without legitimacy and chowda. Instead, we got fish-tossing and Soundgarden bumper music. We’re the reason stereotypes are stereotypes, because everything you think you know about Seattle (crazed, drug-riddled hippy-ism primarily) is 100% true.
Also fuck coffee.
Kirsten:
The team is most likely paying off some piss tester, then forcing one or two players to get “caught” every couple months just so it’s not completely obvious what is happening.
Matt:
Considering how into being Christian he is, you think god would bless would bless Russell Wilson with some actual blocking at some point.
Robert:
After Percy ran back the 2nd half kickoff for the score that pretty much sealed the Super Bowl win, I turned to my buddy, who claims that he’s a lifelong Hawks fan, and congratulated him on his team finally winning a championship. His response: “Goddamn refs! This should have been two.” This is the happiest moment in team history, and he was still whining about a game from 8 years ago. Every other Seahawks fan in the room agreed with him. 12th Man everybody.
Stephen:
I’m a Seahawks fan. I genuinely believe Golden Tate made that catch. I’m pure human garbage.
Brandon:
You know how loud we Seahawks fans are? Like an aircraft carrier deck, Aziz Ansari standup, a dozen Harleys, and Kim Cattrall in Porky’s all rolled into one obnoxious fan.
Next time your team plays the Seahawks, you could play a drinking game in which you have to take a shot every time some moron mentions how loud we are, but you would probably have to get your stomach pumped before halftime.
Gabriel:
Seattle STILL owes $50 million on the torn-down-for-15-years Kingdome.
Josh:
People here physically hated Pete Carroll when he was at USC, then suddenly forgot that he was a cheating asshole when he arrived in the emerald city.
Zane:
It doesn’t rain in Washington, it’s a year round sprinkle that causes drivers to forget how to be a human.
Danny:
Nate:
First, everyone loves Russell Wilson now, despite the fact that 90% of our fans hated it when he was drafted (to short and not a “real” QB), and the city nearly revolted WTO riot style when Wilson was named the starter his rookie year over Matt “I won the lotto because NFL GMs are idiots” Flynn. After Wilson was drafted, Hugh Millen, a local and beloved sports blowhard radio personality famously said he’d eat a microphone if Russell Wilson amounted to anything, echoing fan sentiment at the time.
The City of Seattle likes to portray itself as a liberal, all inclusive diverse tent, despite the fact that when the Seahawks’ black players come to town after the off-season, the city’s African-American population increases by a multiple of 10. The city is also more segregated than a Jim Crow municipality from the 50s, with “undesirables” (code for “black”) delegated to living in South Seattle, an area that is ruled by the Seattle Police Department with an iron fist, which is now overseen by the Feds because the SPD “ engaged in a pattern of excessive use of force that violated the Constitution as well as Federal law”. Public schools in South Seattle make Detroit public schools seem like Harvard prep schools. For the pleasure of living away from the undesirable and with the other passive aggressive, over-caffeinated and overpaid dimwits north of downtown, you can buy a 950 square foot “craftsman” house with lead paint and asbestos for $900,000 in one of Seattle’s overpriced neighborhoods like Fremont and Wallingford.
Attend a game, and you’ll quickly realize that the fan base is comprised mostly of meth heads, parolees, alcoholics, and morbidly obese women and men who have a disdain for personal hygiene and mouthwash, all of whom hail from depressing neighboring towns such as Kent, Auburn, Enumclaw, Puyallup and other towns that have as much culture and diversity as a backwards WASP town in Northern Florida. Despite Seattle’s “green” reputation, the parking lot is filled with monster trucks from the trailer park contingent of the fan base, most of which are undoubtedly financed over 96 months at 18% interest. Concessions at the stadium should accept EBT, as who doesn’t enjoy spending $10 for bland and watery Starbucks coffee that takes 20 minutes to prepare? It’s Starbucks, so it must be good coffee!
Dom:
Good luck finding a modest fan.
Seth:
This fucking guy.
Jon:
Seattle is a poor imitation of Portland with a stick up its ass.
Chris:
1.) When Marshawn Lynch was holding out during training camp, every newspaper article or tweet or radio discussion had to have some asshole say something like, “What should I tell my children? That they can just stay home from work when they want more money?” Or, “I would be fired if I didn’t show up for work,” like their situations are exactly the same. I’m sure Mike in sales was the key factor for why Xerox won it all last year. The concern trolling can be of another world. “I agree that Marshawn Lynch was an integral part of the Super Bowl victory and they definitely wouldn’t have won it without him, and he’ll probably be cut at the end of the season because Russell Wilson is eligible for a new deal, but gosh-darn-it, a contract is a contract.”
2.) For some reason, the fans who come into Seattle from its surround suburbs that it’s perfectly okay to piss anywhere they want, as long as it is within about six blocks of CenturyLink Field. If you walk through Pioneer Square on game day and you’re bound to see some asshole in a faded Lofa Tatupu jersey relieving himself in the doorway of an art gallery or nice restaurant.
Kyle:
We think we’re loud, but we’re really just annoying. We can’t take an actual compliment from someone else without thinking they are somehow being facetious and/or demanding more respect from them. We’ve become exactly what we’ve always hated about every other successful franchise. Is that normal?
David:
Also, if Percy Harvin injures himself one more time, I’ll go into an Adderall-laced rant that will put Richard Sherman to shame.
Brad:
As if the “12th Man” thing wasn’t already annoying enough (my favorite player is me!), Seattle fans are completely under the delusion that this is unique to them, and are aggressively ignorant of the fact that lots of other football teams also have a 12th man. In fact, when confronted with evidence of other teams honoring their 12s, Seahawk fans’ brains shut down, similar to computers in a Sci-Fi movie that have been presented with a logical paradox.
Eduardo:
The sun NEVER comes out.
Zane:
The Seahawks are the virgin kid who plays games in the basement, smokes weed by himself, never had a date or made physical contact with a girl who thinks he’s hot shit after he got his cherry popped at the first party he attended.
David:
Justin:
These fans whine about everything, last year, they thought the NFL was out to get them because they had five 1pm games on the East Coast. This year, the Hawk fans think it’s a conspiracy because they have only 3 prime time games, and only one of those is at home. Heaven forbid no one feels like tuning in to watch a team run the ball 273 times and shots of Pete Carroll slapping someone’s ass on the sideline.
Seattle is where all good Vikings receivers go to get paid while on IR.
Fuck Seattle hipsters and gluten free menus
Anthony:
The 12th fan jersey is the dumbest thing going for the Seahawks and how they climbed the ranks of the 10th best selling jersey is beyond me. Wearing one of those is like jerking off to a photo of yourself.
Mark:
Seattle sports fans hate winning. They’re much more comfortable with a loss. It’s part of the city’s identity. The Sonics left town years ago, and no one will shut up about it — it’s like a sore tooth that they keep biting down on.
Craig:
Because a person can wear this to a game without no repercussions whatsoever:
Dan:
The punter and kicker have better salaries than Russell Wilson. That’s not going to last. Our best receiver has a hip made out of Fabergé Egg. Sidney Rice’s head died. The highest paid offensive line in the NFL allowed over 40 sacks, which would have been higher if our quarterback wasn’t a tiny (average sized adult male) magician. Everyone hates Pete Carroll for smiling and chewing gum and looking like he enjoys life.
Kevin:
Props to Russell Wilson for jettisoning wife #1 before signing that next contract. Just because he goes to church doesn’t mean he can’t count.
Tyler:
A partial list of musicians the Seahawks have publicly been affiliated with since the beginning of last season:
Macklemore
Everyone in America dislikes one of those people.
They hired Jeff Ireland.
Derek:
Last year, I had a drunk, bearded man in a Red Bryant jersey order a coffee from me, and upon seeing the Starbucks logo on the cup, he started screaming that he wouldn’t drink coffee out of any cup that has “that Nazi Howard Schultz’s company” logo on it, and he escalated it to the point where he was beating his fists on the counter, hyperventilating, and on the verge of tears. He came back one week later in the same jersey and threw a tantrum about the exact same thing.
Fuck Jerramy Stevens.
Zach:
Our head coach is a 9/11 truther, and that may be his least unappealing quality.
Zach:
Look, bandwagon fans are a part of every fan base, but only Seahawks fans treat it like they’ve joined a cult. Yes, CenturyLink Field (shitty, shitty name by the way) is really loud, but that’s not because we Seahawks fans are imbued with more heart or louder voices. It’s because Paul Allen is a smart, unfathomably wealthy man, and he had the stadium designed to amplify noise.
Plus, what’s happened to Seattle over the last few years is a microcosm of what the NFL wants to see happen to all of human existence. It used to be that the Seahawks were a minor part of a vibrant, beautiful city. Now from mid-August until January (or February), all anyone can fucking talk about is the ‘Hawks. What is this, Green Bay? Fuck you Roger Goodell, I do not want to see everything else in the world sacrificed to your unquenchable thirst for maximum exposure.
Oh, and Sounders games are more fun.
Spokeytown:
The one weak link on last year’s team was the offensive line. Go back and look at the playoff games with the Saints and 49ers; the other team’s defense was shooting through the line like water through a colander. Wilson was constantly running for his life. So did the team plug their one hole in free agency? In the draft? Of course not! We let two stiffs go and stuck with the rest. Now we’re hiring washed up old blockers like Eric Winston off the street.
Also Seattle is the world capital of passive aggressive dickheads and uptightness, and nobody ever gets laid. I lived there for six years and have no idea how Seattlites reproduce; I think they just split in half like bacteria.
AFC South: Titans | Jaguars | Texans | Colts
NFC South: Falcons | Buccaneers | Panthers | Saints
AFC West: Chargers | Chiefs | Raiders | Broncos
NFC West: Rams |Cardinals | 49ers | Seahawks
AFC North: Steelers | Bengals | Browns | Ravens
Wanna be part of the Deadspin NFL previews? It’s simple. Just email me and give me ample evidence of why your team sucks: personal anecdotes, encounters with fans, etc. I’ll throw any good material into the post and give you proper credit. Next team up (today): Pittsburgh Steelers.