Lauren and I took in the Bears/Seahawks playoff game at Soldier Field on Sunday. I’ve had a good couple of weeks and am currently caught up on bills so I thought it would be worth it to spend the money and get tickets based on the logic that if the Seahawks had won I’d never forgive myself for not being there. The game didn’t turn out how I wanted to, but I am still glad I went. As much as it sucked to watch the Seahawks lose and have a bunch of assholes celebrating around me (note: they were not assholes because they were Bears fans, they were assholes because they were assholes) I still love the Seahawks and will always be there for a playoff game if I can make it.
I’ve been called a “fair weather fan” a couple of times because, I don’t know, people didn’t hear me talk about the Seahawks before last weekend, I guess. It’s kind of stupid. I could have easily gone on for hours about how I’m unsure of the Pete Carroll signing and how I love Matt Hasselbeck, but thought we’d be better off giving Whitehurst starts when it looked like we weren’t going to make the playoffs and how Russell Okung is amazing and how I don’t know what they should do in the draft or when they’ll be contenders again, but I didn’t because most people don’t want to talk about a rebuilding team on the other side of the country when their favorite team has a winning record and is in the playoffs. The St. Louis game and the Saints game may have reawakened the “I love the Seahawks and want to watch them every minute of the day” within in me, but it was always there. There was no way I was missing that game.
The weather wasn’t as bad as you would have expected it to be. Sure, it was 20 degrees and it snowed, but there wasn’t really any wind and we dressed appropriately. Lauren was a good sport about the whole thing considering it was 20 degrees and she doesn’t even like football. She tried to support me, even when I was ready to leave in the first quarter, and didn’t complain about the cold at all. It was a real good time.
As for the game itself it’s pretty safe to say the Bears won fair and square. Maybe it was the cold or the west coast team going east (and the game starting at 10 am their time) or maybe it was just a 7-9 team showing why they were 7-9, but the Seahawks just didn’t have it. Numerous dropped passes (many that would have been first downs), the inability to stop the run and establish the run are what did them in. People can talk all day about the Bears defense (2 sacks, 0 turnovers, quiet day from Peppers) and Jay Cutler (4 total TDs), but what won the game was the difference in the running game. Period. The scoreboard says what it says, but the two teams were a lot more evenly matched than that and the Packers are going to kill them.
The thing that killed me about the game was when the Bears were up 7-0 in the first quarter and had the ball at the 3 yard line when Jay Cutler threw it right to Jordan Babineaux, who dropped it. If he catches that it’s a 100 yard TD run the other way to make the game 7-7 or at worst 7-0 Seahawks ball. Instead the Bears scored and the rest was history. That play was the game and why I wanted to leave in the first quarter. The game was over.
It sucked watching that and I wish I wasn’t there for it, but I’m also glad I was able to go and would go a hundred times again if I had the chance. Even though this one hurt and the one I went to before hurt even more (the Hasselbeck “We want the ball and we’re gonna score” game), but I don’t really care. I love the Seahawks.
And the Brewers are going to win the World Series.
