13-4 and make it to the NFC Championship Game, maybe more.
There is sort of a precedent for the Seahawks to come out of nowhere and light up the league. The closest precedent is...
OK, does anyone remember Kurt Warner's emergent 1999 season with the Rams and Dick Vermeil and Mike Martz that wound up in a Lombardi for that team?
To quote Russell, "Why not us?"
Geno starts out with 3 TD passes vs the Donkeys and Patriots, then 3 vs the Dolphins, 3 more vs the Lions, and eventually 5 TD passes in a beatdown of the 49ers. People are saying, WTF, where did this Geno-Smith-Kurt-Warner come from? Marshawn is quoted as saying, "This M*****f**kin Ryan Grubb is the M*****f**kin second coming of Mike Martz! I wish he'd been my M*****f**kin OC for Super Bowl 49!"
Warner's Geno's breakout season from a career in anonymity was so unexpected that
Sports Illustrated featured him on their November
18 -something cover with the caption “Who IS this guy?”
Hawks losses are on the road to the 49ers, and a meaningless last game of the season to the Rams on the road, and one at home to either Packers or Bills, most likely Bills, and then a random close road loss to a team that gets a couple turnover breaks, e.g., a tipped pick 6, a fumble on special teams, etc. Maybe NYJ or Detroit, or even AZ.
People forget how good the Rams defense was in 1999 when they won that Lombardi. The Hawks defense will also be SO GOOD that they make Geno's job easier and Seattle plays from ahead a lot, getting turnovers from teams taking risks in catch-up mode. OK, so the Hawks win the NFC Championship game in defensive slugfest just like the 1999 Rams 11-6 NFCCG win over a stubborn Tampa Bay team with that elite defense, the Hawks win a defensive slugfest over the Rams on a late TD pass to Jake Bobo, instead of Ricky Proehl. Pundits label the play, "Seahawks, and the slowest Bo on turf", beat the Rams, making fun of Jake Bobo and his near-5-second 40 time.
The defense makes a big stop late in the SB to deny Mahomes and the Chiefs, just like the '99 Rams and Mike Jones, except it's Jerome Baker making the big play, stopping Travis Kelce inches short of the goal line on a 4th down play; there's no Jones or Smith with a common first name so Baker is probably the most vanilla name on the Hawks D.
At the Super Bowl celebration, the team brings in Pete Carroll as the designated crier, to make up for not having Dick Vermeil to call on. MikeMac is seen with a single tear in the corner of one eye, but he's just not a crier. Carroll, asked if those are tears of joy for the team that still has so much of his influence and players, replies, sobbing, "Why didn't we run??!!"
