Long Live Efren Herrera!!!

I go to alot of games in alot of sports every year. For the most part, they're pretty uneventful. You go, you watch the game, the crowd and all of that. Sometimes something kinda cool happens. Sometimes not. I then come home and go to bed. 99% of the time that's how things go.

And then there are days like today. Days that stick out. Days that I'll talk about for years to come. It's just one of those days where everything comes together. It's days like today that help me through all those other routine game days.

The only bad part of the day for me was the fact that I couldn't find my parka anywhere. But I just kept telling myself that it doesn't rain at Qwest Field....EVER! Well, I won't be saying that anymore (lol). It wasn't that hard of a rain. Really, it was just this constant, persistant drizzle that just wouldn't go away. Kind of a normal day for us up here this time of year.

And because of that rain, it made it difficult for both offenses to get themselves going. Granted, Dallas wasn't helped at all with the loss of Julius Jones. But there was still alot of slipping and falling out there along with some passes thrown by both quarterbacks that just kinda floated into nowhere. So it wasn't the scoreboard tilter like last season's Monday Night game. But it was just as exciting.

Only the outcome was MUCH better this time!!!

The Seahawks took the opening drive down deep into Dallas territory. Things were looking pretty rosey at that point. That is until Peter Warrick let one slip through his hands and into the waiting arms of a Cowboys d-back. After some punts and generally sloppy play, the Cowboys eventually scored a touchdown on a nice pass from Drew Bledsoe to Keyshawn Johnson. Originally we thought that Johnson didn't get both feet in bounds. But seeing the replay later, he did a great job getting both feet in.

With less than a minute to go in the first half, Ryan Brown kicked a 55 yard field goal to pull the Seahawks to within 4 points. Which wasn't so bad considering that the refs weren't exactly calling the best game ever. Oh, it was going both ways. But they clearly missed at least two (alot of people were saying three) obvious pass interference calls on the Dallas defense in that first half. But we sorta got away with one later.....sorta (lol).

Half-time was interesting. They had the drumlines from Washington, Washington State and Oregon State perform with the Seahawks Blue Thunder line. I guess the University of Oregon declined the invitation. Perhaps it was because of the way their band was....literally....booed off the field at half-time a couple years ago (lol). Up here, Husky fans and Cougar fans don't get along none too well. But I think the one thing they can join each other in an unholy matrimony over is in their dislike of the Ducks.

The second half was a slop-fest. Neither offense could get anything going at all. Part of it was due to good defense. But I think alot of it had to do with the weather. Like I said before, it wasn't all that bad out there. But it was bad enough to cause problems for everyone.

The turning point of the game came in the 4th quarter. Off a punt, Seahawks deep man, Jimmy Williams, decided for some strange reason to pick up a bouncing football. Of course he didn't get it. And the Cowboys recovered the ball deep in Seattle territory. With the scoring at a premium in this game, things looked pretty bleak for the Seahawks at that point.

But the Cowboys went 3-and-out. Although, it wasn't without controversy. On 3rd down, the Cowboys went with a passing play. The Seahawks defensive front came in and sacked Bledsoe. But there was a flag on the play near the goal line. The back judge came running in at the referee and was signaling pass interference on the Seahawks. Which I found to be strange since you can't technically call pass interference when there was no pass in the first place. So the refs huddled together again (for about the 128th time in the game) and decided that there was no penalty on the play. Seeing it again when I got home, it looked like the Seahawks defensive back slipped and fell in front of the Dallas tight end. The real question is did he take a swipe at the TE for Dallas or not? If he did, then they could have called illegal contact against Seattle. But the referees decided that whatever contact that was made was incidental.

The best part of all of that was watching Bill Parcells punch one of his assistants in the arm while he was arguing with the ref. They had just put the dispute on the big screen when Parcells commited his assault. Of course, that drew alot of "ooh's" and "aah's" and "hahaha's" from the crowd.

So on 4th down, the Cowboys decided to go for a field goal. But it was one of those things for the Cowboys when everything just kinda went sideways. First it was a bad snap. Then the holder, who had to make adjustments to the bad snap, put the ball down in the wrong place. And that caused Dallas kicker Jose Cortez to shank the kick to the left. I'll take credit for all of that. I hexed them by wiggling my fingers at them before the snap (lol).

With momentum on their side, the Seahawks took the ball at their 20 yardline. And the Seahawks did what they normally do....nothing (lol). After giving the ball back to Dallas, the Cowboys promptly marched into field goal territory. This time, everything went right and they made the score. This time, I blame myself...I forgot to wiggle my hex-filled fingers at Cortez (lol).

At that point, I turned to Dan and said "that's okay. We're still within striking distance". Which we were. But judging from what little the Seahawks had done the rest of the game, I didn't have much faith.

But the one thing the Seahawks had going for them was the Cowboys went...well...Seahawks (lol). They didn't go to that dumb-ass dime package. But they did go into something of a nickel/cover-two scheme. Which is something that you don't want to do against a passing game like the Seahawks (or...as I've bellyached a million times...the Rams). And that allowed Hasselbeck to just sit back and find whoever was open. And he used everybody. Once it was DJ Hackett. Then Jerramy Stevens. Then Joe Jurevicius. Here's one over to Jerheme Urban.

The Cowboys did a good job of stuffing Shaun Alexander all day. But they couldn't stop him from making a key 9 yard run for a first down. On the next play, Hasselbeck found Hackett on a pass that took the Seahawks down to the 1 yardline. They tried to hand it off to Alexander for the touchdown. But the Cowboys defense did a great job of stopping him once again. The Hawks took a timeout to re-access their situation. On the very next play, they ran a play action roll-out where Hasselbeck found a diving Ryan Hannam in the endzone! After the extra point, the Seahawks had tied the game at 10-10 with 42 seconds left in the 4th quarter.

Things started out looking pretty bad on the next kickoff. The Dallas returner was able to run the ball back to about the Cowboys 40. Then, on the very first play, Drew Bledsoe threw an interception to Jordan Babineaux! He ran the ball back to about the Dallas 30. Holmgren wasted no time in getting Josh Brown back onto the field. The snap was good...the hold was good...and the ball sailed a true 50 yards through the air and split the uprights with no time left on the clock!

Seahawks won 13-10!!!!!!

After that, the stands in Qwest Field turned to bedlam. Everybody was just up and yelling and screaming and cheering like I've never seen before. You would have thought that they had just won the NFC championship or something (lol). We were high-fiving everyone around us. People who don't know each other were hugging each other. Nobody (outside of dejected Cowboy fans) left their seats. Babineaux and Marquand Manuel ran around in the south endzone holding a Ken Hamlin jersey up in the air. And we cheered some more. No Seahawk fan left until the entire team was off the field. And even on the way out of the stadium, we were all still high-fiving each other and chanting different things. One woman tried to start a Super Bowl chant. But nobody joined in (lol).

See, even though we're very happy with the win today, we're still fans of Seattle sports. And we've been teased too often over the last 10 years or so with our teams to start up chants about the Super Bowl or anything like that. But it's still a start. I've been calling this little stretch of the Seahawks schedule the "revenge tour" for a little bit now. It's their chance to avenge three of their most crippling losses of last season. This was the first...putting that Monday Night debacle from last season behind them. In two weeks, it's down to Phoenix to hopefully beat the Cardinals. That was a loss last season that should have been an easy victory. Hopefully they'll take that one more seriously this time. And then the week after that, it'll be time to tackle the biggest gorilla of them all...finishing off the Rams at home. They've already proven that they can beat the Rams when they did that a couple weeks ago in St. Louis (wasn't that just a glorious game, Linsday???). Now they just have to do it in Seattle. On the same field where their season basically fell apart last season.

If they can pull off those two victories, then maybe the hardcore Seattle fans will truely begin to believe.

Obviously the star of the game on the field was Josh Brown. Two half-ending field goals that total 105 yards will do that for you. But maybe the biggest star of the game off the field was former Seahawks kicker Efren Herrera. He was the one who raised the 12th man flag before the game. After he did that, he went out to the end of the paltform and started waving his arms around to get the crowd loud (like most of them do). And that lasted for about 15 seconds or so (like it usually does). But after the cheering died down, he just kept standing there waving his arms around in the air like a buffoon. He just wouldn't leave. Some official finally came and pulled him away.

Then a couple times during the game, they had our old pal Efren on the big screen while he was roaming around on the sidelines, still waving his arms around. It was actually kinda funny. Perhaps they should replace Blitz with Efren Herrera as the team mascot (lol).

So as this grey, rainy day turned to a cold, dark dusk we left the stadium on a dizzy high. Is this team really something to believe in? Or is this just another cruel mirage for us long suffering Seattle fans? I guess only time will tell.