West TX Hawk":lkgwh1dv said:
As an analogy, say you're a fan of an Ohio State caliber program and your school won the nat'l title a few years ago. You have 5 star blue chip recruits up and down your roster the last several years. But oddly, you find your team playing in the Gator Bowl and Outback Bowl in consecutive years and a couple of your stars are threatening to transfer. Are you happy or unhappy with the direction of the program? By losing the Gator Bowl, did your school have a successful year or unsuccessful? Or are you content that you get to see your team on tv on New Years at 9 am and hang out with buddies?
Most dedicated Seahawk fans seem to fall in 3 categories:
1) Satisfied: typified by "We made the playoffs!! Can you believe it-we won a wildcard game-woo hoo!! Happiness is here again. How dare you say anything disparaging about my team-this is my team and our coaches won us a title and by God, I'm sticking with them no matter what. I love this team and trust completely in our staff and don't you ever say anything discouraging-they won us a title didn't they? And got us to another-don't complain!-this is the greatest era of your life!"
2) Frustrated: "I'm certainly grateful we won a title, but with the talent year in and year out we have, it's going to go down as unfulfilled potential if we don't win 1 more title during this era. The Carroll tenure has been incredible, no doubt, but XLIX left a horrible lasting impact and the team has been on a slow decline ever since. Realistically, as much as I want them to win another SB, I just don't see it happening. Pete is slowly losing the team and we're slipping." These fans may also have been around for the long haul and realize this window is narrow and despite the consistent success and the memory of the crap days from long ago, wanting to see the team maximize its talent level trumps enjoyment over mere 2nd round playoff appearances.
3) Enjoying the Ride Exemplified by common phrases: "You certainly can't expect to win it all every year, so I'm just enjoying this nice run and we'll see where it takes us. I try not to get too emotionally involved-it's just weekend entertainment and the Hawks have been winning more often than not the last several years. We already won a title so everything else is just gravy. Don't overanalyze it-it's not life. XLIX was unfortunate but just move on for crying out loud!"
There's also casual fans that jumped on the bandwagon of course but I won't count them. There really is no right or wrong answer and there's likely subcategories of fans. Objectively, I'm probably in category 2 myself...but we all here are actual, passionate fans and just want to see the team win.
OR you could be a combination of 1) & 2).........2) & 3)........1) & 3).......OR, like myself..a combination 1), SOME of 2) AND 3)
Saying that It's no big deal that " We Made The Playoffs",...It's dismissive because if you don't make it INTO Playoffs, you have O Chance to make it to ANY Super Bowl.
"Any Given Sunday"
Pete getting us INTO TWO Super Bowls, and has getting us INTO the Playoffs prior to, and ever since winning our FIRST Lombardi....That's CONSISTENCY That's a POSITIVE, And that's a GOOD Thing.