Saturday was a great event for the people of Seattle to be a part of and to have it on a national stage in terms of TV; it was great for everybody in the organization.
Everybody on the Seahawks was fired up and played hard, and the Redskins came in with all of this momentum and emotion. That's a hard thing to quell. The game went a couple of different ways. It looked like we had it early, and then they came back to take the lead, and then we kind of sealed the deal (35-14) late. It was a classic, classic game. You just wish everybody around here could have been at that one.
That's why we do all of this. Everybody in this building works very hard at what they do for one reason, to help this team win. You get into the playoffs ... everybody knows it's one and done. Everything is on the line. That's hard to beat in the sports world to get a win in that situation. Every win, every year in the playoffs, gets better.
It doesn't bother us that (the national media overlooks us), but we felt like we've earned more respect than that. I think the guys on this team use it as motivation. It's just the way it's been in terms of the national stage. I would imagine the Mariners and the Sonics have felt the same thing. It does make it sweeter when you do something - win the division, get to the playoffs and get to the Super Bowl. You know you've overcome a lot when you get there.
We hit a period of some bad luck at the start of the fourth quarter. The kickoff (muffed in the wind) was very strange. I knew it wouldn't make our guys' spirits fade. I know they'd hang in there. We just needed a break. We weren't getting any in that five-minute period there that turned around the whole game faster than anyone could have thought.
The defense started it by holding them after the strange kickoff. It could have been a situation where they go in, score a touchdown, and all of a sudden the game's over. But all season long, whenever they've been faced with those kinds of situations, they've stood their ground. They ran out there and said, "These guys aren't going anywhere," and they didn't. That's the way I felt. And they didn't do anything there. The guy missed a 30-yard field goal and our guys saw the window open again, drove a truck through it and never looked back.
In every one of these playoff games, you're going to hit a period of adversity. It's all a matter of how you deal with it. Are you going to take it as an opportunity and go, or, are you going to swallow it? And our guys said, "OK, let's go." They responded exactly as we expected them to and they knew they would.
I've gone to Lambeau Field a few times in my career ... yeah, I've had a few passes through Lambeau to continue on into the playoffs. One time with the Buccaneers it was the last game of the season. If we win the game, we get a bye going into the playoffs. If we lose it, we play the wild card. We had a short field goal to win the game, and our guy was wide left. That was a crusher. Then we were one and done in the playoffs.
Then we had a game in the Divisional Playoffs and we were ahead of the Packers in the first half, really playing well. And we had another play about to expand the lead when one of our receivers was running for a touchdown and Packers defensive back LeRoy Butler grabs him by the hand-warmer, and pulls him down by the elastic. That was the only thing he could grab. It would have been an 80-yard touchdown and we ended up losing by just a few points. I've had some moments at Lambeau Field.
It's a great venue, filled with so much tradition and the crowd. I'd rather be playing at Qwest this week, but you've got to love being involved in the emotion that comes with us playing the Packers at Lambeau Field.Â
