Shake, Shake, Shake....

It was a cold, rainy day. Okay......that's kind of a cliche (lol). But it was! Actually, that same opening line could go for any of the previous 28 days around here. Yup...for those not around here, we've had 28 straight days that featured some sort of rain. I accept the rain. It's just a fact of life up here. That's what we're known for, isn't it? I mean, California has the sun, Minnesota has the snow, the midwest has tornado's, the southeast has hurricanes and the northwest has it's rain. But almost a month of nothing but rain is getting a little old. At this point, I believe the record is something like 31 straight days (set in the 50's sometime, I also believe I heard). But on the way up to the Park & Ride today, I heard a little quote about our foul weather from Mike Holmgren's press conference earlier in the week. He said "we've broken all sorts of records this season. Why not break another one since we're on a roll"?

Indeed.

I also noticed last night when I was driving home from Everett that the Tacoma Dome is now sporting a 12th Man flag right underneath the American flag. So I couldn't bring myself to flip that rotten woodpile off like Tom and I normally do (shhhh.....please don't tell him.....lol).

Anyway, back to that cold, rainy day. The one thing that really sucked about it was that Touchdown City was held outside this time instead of inside the convention center. This was due to the fact that the Seattle Boat Show was inside. They actually canceled the boat show a couple days earlier than originally planned just because of the football game. But you could still see all sorts of expensive yachts that nobody who makes less than a million dollars a year could even imagine to own. I guess they just couldn't get all those boats out of there in the 16 hours that they had.

But I still hung out outside for about an hour before I went in. Which turned out to be pretty cool. It wasn't raining a whole bunch. So there were all sorts of people wandering around looking at whatever little was out there. There were a bunch of people hanging out at the KIRO booth watching them do the pre-game show. And we got to see quite a few Seahawk legends. Old-timers like Curt Warner, Jacob Green and, of course, Steve Largent. Warren Moon was pretty popular. Especially since he was recently named one of the 15 finalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I hope he makes it. But I have a feeling that he'll probably be one of those guys who gets voted in during a weak year of candidates. Especially since they only vote 4 guys in per year.

Trent Dilfer arrived to the quick, sporadic chants of "Dilfer" that we used to yell when he first arrived in Seattle and Matt Hasselbeck wasn't all that good. And Ken Hamlin also got a loud ovation when he popped in for a quick interview. When asked whether or not he would ever be able to come back and play football again, he said that he was planning on being in Cheney when training camp rolls around next July. But he was also careful by saying that he wouldn't do anything that the doctors told him not to do. The "Hammer" also got a rousing ovation just before kickoff as he was the one chosen to raise the 12th Man flag.

The game started off well. Hasselbeck completed an early 52 yard pass to Darrell Jackson to quickly put the Seahawks in scoring position. The Seahawks continued to march downfield and seemed destined to score on their first possesion. But Shaun Alexander commited a rare fumble on the Washington 11 yardline, which the Redskins recovered.

Then, on the next Seattle drive, we avoided what could have been a disaster. Shaun Alexander went down with a concussion that took him out of the game. Although I think that deflated the crowd a little bit, we still have faith in Maurice Morris. And Mo did a pretty good job the rest of the game against a pretty good Redskins run defense.

Washington took the first lead at 3-0. But the Seahawks came back with a good drive downfield that ended when Hasselbeck found Darrell Jackson in the endzone for a touchdown. I thought Darrell did a good job of adjusting to that ball. He turned his head around the opposite way that the ball was coming. But he was still able to twist his body around to make the catch.

By the way...you can take me off the "Darrell Jackson Haters" list (lol). Unlike the last two seasons, the guy now catches everything thrown his way. He's back to playing the way he used to. Still not the swiftest receiver out there, he's alot like Largent in that he can just find a way to get open and make the catch. And, much like Largent, he's clearly not respected as a deep threat. He caught two bombs today which were the result of being wide-open. It's like the Washington defensive backfield decided to ignore him.

So the Seahawks were up 7-3 at halftime. Walking around the upper deck during halftime was interesting. I ran into a guy who I sat next to on the bus earlier this season and talked to him for a few minutes. Before I left, he pulled a little shot-bottle of Jack Daniels out of his pocket and gave it to me. I cracked it open, and swallowed it down. That warmed me up a little bit (lol). There was also some guy marching around trying to get a "Forskins Suck" chant going. Crude, but what do you expect from a liquored-up football fan? And the lines to the restrooms were longer than any other I had ever seen! For the most part, there were two lines---one from each direction---to get into either the men's or women's room.

Crazy.

Matt Hasselbeck took the game over in the 3rd quarter. After leading the Seahawks on a drive downfield, he scored a touchdown by himself from about five yards out. That put the Seahawks up 14-3 after three quarters. The 4th quarter turned into a typical Seahawks hair-puller (lol). The Redskins scored a touchdown when a pass by former Husky, Mark Brunell, bounced off the helmet of a diving Andre Dyson and into the hands of Santana Moss. At that point, I decided to see what the line to the bathroom looked like. The line wasn't that long anymore, so I decided to snag that chance. When I got to the end of the line, a strange thing happened. Without even looking back, I could feel the life suddenly being sucked out of the stadium. When I turned around to look at the big screen, I could see a pile of players scrumming for a loose ball. Josh Scobey had fumbled the next kickoff. Luckily, all the Skins came away with was a field goal.

With the score 17-10, Josh Brown connected on yet another field goal to put the Seahawks up by 10. This was my favorite moment of the day. Not so much the field goal, but the fact that they started playing KC and the Sunshine Band's "Shake Your Booty" and it sounded like alot of people in the crowd were singing along with it. The game had turned into a giant sing-a-long (lol).

The Redskins made one more late run at the endzone. But it all came to an end when a 4th down attempt at the endzone by Brunell to Moss was batted away by Michael Boulware for an incompletion. The crowds reaction was strange, but not un-Seattle like. There was this strange silence that went through the crowd. I think the first question we all though to ourselves was "was that really an incompletion"? That turned into "are there any yellow flags on the field"? Which then went to "is this for real"? And as each and everyone of us realized that, yes, this is for real, the cheers got louder and louder. It took a good 15-20 seconds for us to soak in what had just happened.........

THE SEAHAWKS FINALLY WON A PLAYOFF GAME!!!!!!!!!

Now let's just hope they don't pull a Mariner job and blow it next week (lol).

Some final thoughts here:

Why didn't the Seahawks put another punt returner in the game? Jimmy Williams almost fumbled the first punt he received, got collered pretty good just after catching the second punt he caught (one that just about every other returner would have called for a fair catch) and fumbled the 3rd one. I mean, Bobby Engram wasn't doing much in the game. In an important contest such as this, why not put in a proven returner?

I hate rooting against Mark Brunell. Being that he was the main quarterback when the Huskies won their National Championship, it's kinda hard for me to whip up a bunch of animosity towards him. I still own his Jacksonville Jaguars jersey. And just watching his post-game press conference a few minutes ago, listening to all the love that he still has towards not only Seattle, but the Northwest in general (he's from Kelso), I actually feel a little bad for him. Not for Shawn Springs or the rest of the Redskins......just Mark Brunell.

Darrell Jackson is also the best interview in Seattle sports history (lol). Although I wasn't too thrilled with him over the last couple seasons on the field due to his butterfingers, I've always liked the guy on a personal level. I mean, how can you say bad things about a black guy who likes Metallica and NASCAR??? (hahaha) Hopefully one day he'll be in the same class of characters with Jay Buhner and Slick Watts.

And I hope that all those Hasselbeck haters eat a nice, large plate of crow sometime this week. All you ever hear from people across the country is "he's not capable of taking over a game" and "if Alexander goes down, Hasselbeck won't be able to do anything to help boost the Hawks offense". Well, what did he do today? Maybe he didn't have a huge 350 yard, 4 touchdown day. But he still took the game over. Whether it was through some audibles at the line, a makeshift route change in the middle of the play (Joe Jurevicius' only snag of the day was a slant route that Hasselbeck saw wouldn't work. So he waved Joe down field and lofted a soft pass that Jurevicius ran under and caught for a key first down) or running to paydirt for his own score, Mr. Hasselbeck DID take over that game and won it himself. And he did it against a damn good defense, too.

So I hope that I hear some respect for Matt Hasselbeck from the likes of Brian Cox, Jim Rome and Steve Czaban this week. But I do know one person who won't give Hasselbeck his props; Tom Winter (lol). And no....he's not answering his phone again (haha). Not too suprising. But, in a way, I hope that the Panthers beat the Bears tomorrow. Not so much because I think Carolina is a better match up for the Hawks. Rather, it'll just make the whole thing that much sweeter knowing that the Seahawks beat the Panthers....who are Tom's adopted team since he loves the Carolina's so much (lol). Of course, there are two downsides to that possibility. The first being that if the Seahawks do beat the Panthers, I probably won't hear from Tom for at least a month. And then there's the opposite. If Carolina does beat the Seahawks, then I won't get any rest for the next month since Tom wouldn't stop taunting me about it (lol).

But that won't happen-----will it???