KIRKLAND – Oh, what a battle this could have been.
In one corner, a returning Super Bowl team with one of the best defenses in the NFL. In the other, a popular NFC favorite with a powerful offense and a quick first step.
It was supposed to be the kind of heavyweight matchup that begs for a few Don King hyperboles.
Well, now it’s here. And there’s not even enough electricity to hold up King’s hair.
When the Seattle Seahawks and Carolina Panthers square off Sunday at Qwest Field, the stakes won’t be nearly what they could have been.
Seattle (3-3) is suffering through a three-game losing streak and finds itself in need of a win just to keep pace in the NFC West race. Carolina (1-5) is sinking like a stone in the NFC South.
High expectations have been replaced by a lot of long faces in both locker rooms.
“It’s rough,” Seahawks defensive tackle Rashad Moore said. “Everybody has their down points, and we’re in one right now. Hopefully we can dig ourselves out of it. I can’t speak for Carolina, but I’m pretty sure they feel the same way. Nobody likes to lose.”
The Seahawks’ problems, surprisingly, center around their can’t-miss offense. After piling up 1,668 yards and committing just three turnovers through the first 31/2 games of this season, Seattle has been put up totals of 785 yards and six turnovers in the past 21/2. Since halftime of the Oct. 10 game against to St. Louis, Seattle’s offense has gone into a serious funk.
The same fans that were talking Super Bowl just 17 days ago are now wondering what it will take for the Seahawks to get a single win.
“We kind of look at them like a wounded bear right now,” Carolina linebacker Mark Fields said. “And wounded bears are going to fight.”
The Panthers are another in a long line of NFC champions to fall off in recent years. Not since the 2000 St. Louis Rams has an NFC Super Bowl representative gone on to make the postseason the following year. And it has been seven years, since Mike Holmgren’s 1997 Green Bay Packers, that a Super Bowl team from the NFC has followed up with a division title.
“People are really gunning for you: ‘These guys are the champs.’ People get up for that a little bit more,” said Hawks center Robbie Tobeck, who went through a similar riches-to-rags story while with the Atlanta Falcons in the late 1990s.
The main reason for Carolina’s decline has been injuries, as Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kris Jenkins, wide receiver Steve Smith and running back Stephen Davis have been among those lost. Even Davis’ backup, DeShaun Foster, got knocked out for the season.
“But we don’t use that as an excuse for us,” Fields said. “We know we’ve got some of our playmakers down, and anytime that happens it’s going to affect your ball club. That’s just common sense.”
Carolina’s woes aren’t just about injuries, though. The Panthers have struggled to find the right combination at offensive line, the new starting cornerbacks have struggled, and quarterback Jake Delhomme has yet to find his rhythm.
That leaves Carolina, once considered a 10-to-1 pick to win the Super Bowl, as a 70-to-1 long shot.
“I still feel like we can win,” said Panthers coach John Fox, whose team has now lost four in a row. “We’ve been in every game we’ve played so far.
“We’ve had our moments. We just need to keep getting better.”
Despite their similarities in recent weeks, the Seahawks hold one distinct advantage over Carolina. Seattle is still in the thick of the race for a division title.
While the Panthers are 31/2 games behind Atlanta in the NFC South, the Seahawks can tie idle St. Louis atop the NFC West with a win Sunday.
Holmgren, who never lost as many as three games in a row during his final four years in Green Bay but already has done it four times in Seattle, believes his team can turn things around. He said Wednesday that he sees the anger in some of his player’s eyes after three close losses.
“I think I know our guys pretty well,” he said. “I was asked (Wednesday): ‘Are guys ticked off?’ I believe they are. We’ll see. Time will tell.”
Running back Shaun Alexander preferred to talk about the players’ disappointment rather than their anger.
“You can’t really point your finger at anybody,” he said.” Everybody’s blown a game or missed a play. So what can you do? You fix yourself. I think we’re going to be all right.”
If the Seahawks are going to get back on track, they’ll have to do it against a sleeping giant. The Panthers might be down, but no one in Seattle’s locker room believes they’re out.
“I’m not going to fall for the hype,” Alexander said. “Teams seem to like to fix things against us. If (the Panthers) fix just a couple little things, they could be really, really good, like they were last year. So I’m preparing for them like they were last year.”
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