Seattle Seahawks’ Us-Against-the-World Routine is Getting Old

By Casey Drottar @cdrottar19 on January 20, 2015

For the second straight year, the Seattle Seahawks will be playing in the Super Bowl. For the second straight year, they punched their ticket thanks to an incredibly dramatic victory in the NFC Championship game. And, for the second straight year, the win came with a few angry Seahawks players lashing out in post-game interviews.

Last year, as we all know, Seattle’s NFC Championship victory was followed up by a fiery Richard Sherman screaming about San Francisco 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree to Fox reporter Erin Andrews. It was just one of the examples of the Seahawks playing with a chip on their shoulder and trying to prove naysayers wrong.

This time around, we saw receiver Doug Baldwin seemingly calling out anyone with a pulse after the Seahawks finished off the Green Bay Packers. He lashed out at the NFL Network’s Deion Sanders for calling out Seattle’s receiving corps, then continued to go on tirades at the media about how they all questioned the team, calling them haters in what appeared to be a sermon to anyone with a recording device nearby.

It certainly appears as though the chip on the Seahawks’ shoulder isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and they’re likely bringing their underdog, “nobody respects us” mentality right along with them on their way to their Super Bowl matchup with the New England Patriots.

Listen, Seattle: we get it. Everybody doubts you and all that noise. But, seriously, this whole thing is getting really stale.

You could argue maybe last year the Seahawks could run with this “prove everybody wrong” shtick, seeing as, even though they were 13-3, the franchise had only been to one Super Bowl. Overall, Seattle had been a good team as of late, but certainly wasn’t viewed in the same light as ultra-successful franchises like the Patriots or Pittsburgh Steelers. Even this is a bit of a reach, but I’ll give it to them.

Now, though? Are the Seahawks still serious about being angry at the world because all everyone does is hate on their team?

If they are, more power to them, I guess. Still, there doesn’t seem to be much weight in this routine anymore.

Seattle is the defending Super Bowl champions. They were the trendy pick to return and win it all again this year when pundits were giving out their season-opening predictions. Their defense was still regarded as elite, and it was almost mutually agreed that, if anyone from the NFC wanted to get to the big game, they had to get through the Seahawks first.

But, yeah, everyone was totally doubting Seattle again.

As we know, there was a blip in the earlier weeks of the season in which things looked tumultuous for the Seahawks. The team lost a couple games they shouldn’t have, they sent wideout Percy Harvin packing amidst rumors of locker room turmoil, and reports even surfaced regarding a team-wide divide of opinions on quarterback Russell Wilson. It was only natural for some to see these as signs of trouble, and many wondered if cracks were showing in the Seahawks’ armor, myself included.

However, Seattle has only lost one game since these troubling weeks in October. They won their division, as well as home-field advantage through the playoffs. By mid-November, the common thought was the Seahawks were back, and this spelled trouble for anyone else in the league.

Apparently, Seattle players don’t hear praise like this. Instead, all they keep hearing about is how rough things were in the first half of the season, not how they turned it all around in the second half. At least, this is how it sounds when players keep lashing out at reporters because of question marks raised three months ago.

Who’s still doubting Seattle? Who, as kickoff neared for Sunday’s championship game, honestly felt as though the Packers were going to run away with the game because these lousy Seahawks just don’t belong here?

More importantly, why is Seattle still so sensitive?

They’re the defending champions, still polishing off Super Bowl rings which aren’t even a calendar year old yet as they head back to try and win another. At the same time, the Seahawks still appear to be taking issue with any negative thing ever said about them. It’s as if they still aren’t receiving any praise, and are the biggest 12-4 underdogs the world has ever seen.

I mean, I guess it’s working for them. Convincing themselves the entire NFL is out to get them has brought them this far. However, does a team playing for its second consecutive Super Bowl really still need bulletin board material to motivate them? Do they go through every article written about the team and pick out any negative ones and label them as “haters?”

Sorry, just because it appears to be leading to success doesn’t make this team-wide paranoia any less tiresome.

Just because someone wrote a negative article about you in October doesn’t mean you’re seen as scrappy also-rans who’ll never turn it around. Just because someone picked the Packers over Seattle in their game predictions doesn’t mean they did so to lash out at the Seahawks. And, spoiler alert, some people may write how they believe New England will win over Seattle in the Super Bowl. Someone please tell the Seahawks in advance this will by no means be an attack on their team by yet another doubter.

I sincerely hope this was just a case of Seattle players being caught up in the moment. Sunday’s game was clearly emotional for everyone involved, and it would be understandable to be a little beside yourself afterwards.

Still, if this routine of nonstop angry tirades against anyone who wrote something mean about the Seahawks that one time a few weeks ago is going to keep occurring, it’ll undoubtedly become one of the most annoying trends in the league.

Sorry, Seattle, you’re not the underdog anymore. People will still write undesirable articles about you from time to time. It’s best to get over it.

Or, by all means, take this column, post it in the locker room and scream about it being written by yet another hater after the Super Bowl. This seems to be the preferred procedure right now, anyways.

Casey Drottar is a Featured Columnist for www.Rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter or “Like” him on Facebook