Super Bowl Action

The Seahawks couldn't help but notice that they were calling this the "City of Self-Doubt" on the front page of one of the local newspapers yesterday, evoking a not-so-storied sporting history.

 

In a town that hasn't cheered a top-tier championship since the Sonics won the 1979 NBA title; in a place where baseball's Mariners once won 116 games and missed the World Series, and where the local NFL team had built a decades-old reputation for big-moment wretchedness, it was as though no one could visualize victory in last night's NFC championship game against the Carolina Panthers.

 

But the 67,837 assembled at notoriously noisy Qwest Field let out a cathartic roar that never seemed to abate. And the Seahawks delivered a civic confidence boost by dominating the Panthers in a 34-14 win that set up one of the unlikeliest Super Bowl matchups in recent memory. The NFC champions will play the Pittsburgh Steelers, 34-17 winners over the Broncos in yesterday afternoon's AFC decider, at Detroit's Ford Field on Feb. 5.

 

Pittsburgh, though it has a gridiron legacy that Seattle can't claim, has developed its own inferiority complex of late. The Steelers haven't been involved in the sporting world's biggest spectacle since losing to the Dallas Cowboys a decade ago. And though Bill Cowher, the Steelers' 14-year coach, had taken them to five AFC championship games before yesterday's, they'd lost a record four times on their home turf.

 

The Steelers haven't won the Super Bowl since they were fitted for four rings in six fabled seasons between 1975 and 1980. And this edition of the club certainly wasn't expected to get to Detroit, the hometown of its bent-on-retirement running back, Jerome Bettis.

 

The showdown will be intriguing, pitting the cartoon-jawed Cowher against the prodigiously jowled Mike Holmgren, the Seahawks coach who won a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers.

 

It'll stack Seattle's long-underrated defence — which had voiced its displeasure with being shut out of the Pro Bowl selections despite anchoring a 13-3 win-loss record in the regular season — against an offence led by the youngest quarterback in Super Bowl history, Ben Roethlisberger, who threw for 275 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another TD yesterday.

 

While Roethlisberger is as rare a prodigy, Seattle's 30-year-old Matt Hasselbeck has matured slowly, famously clashing with Holmgren in the quarterback's hard-knock formative years.

 

And while Hasselbeck was nearly flawless last night, throwing for 219 yards and two touchdowns, he'll be challenged by the Steelers' vaunted blitz, which pressured Denver's Jake Plummer into two fumbles and two interceptions.

 

The Seahawks' defence was just as formidable yesterday, intercepting Jake Delhomme three times and stifling Carolina's star receiver Steve Smith. On a telling first-quarter play, Smith, who'd established himself as the most dangerous offensive player of the post-season, was quadruple-covered. Lofa Tatupu, the Seahawks' rookie linebacker, intercepted to set up a touchdown.

 

Victory was, indeed, reputation-shaping. Shaun Alexander, the Seahawks running back and league MVP, had his toughness questioned after he was knocked out of the victory over Washington with a first-quarter concussion. But Alexander rushed for 132 yards on 34 carries and his excellence helped cue a raucous celebration.

 

There was ticker tape and a grunge rock-worthy racket. And there was a sign hanging in the end zone — "Detroit Hawk City" — that spoke of uneasy pre-game optimism suddenly transformed into rare, welcome truth. Perhaps to no one's surprise in this self-deprecating port, the Seahawks were promptly installed as 3 1/2-point underdogs in the big game.

 

"I hope people are taking a lot of pictures so I can look back at this," Hasselbeck said, speaking for a city, "because I'm kind of a little bit in shock right now."