Seahawks get what they deserve – a lucky break

EATTLE – Reasonable people can say the Dallas Cowboys choked one away.

Certainly, the mood in the Cowboys locker room following the Seahawks’ 21-20 playoff victory reflected that. It was as silent as a cemetery on a frigid winter’s night. Players answered questions grudgingly.

Quietly.

Sometimes, with only a look.

The last thing they wanted was to relive the previous 3 hours, 9 minutes.

Many today will proclaim the Seattle Seahawks have no more business moving on in the playoffs than the Sonics do. They stole one, they’ll say.

The Seahawks saw the season virtually end several times during the game: Once, after Miles Austin’s third-quarter, 93-yard kickoff return that gave the Cowboys a 17-13 lead at a time the Seahawks offense looked frozen in time; once when Martin Gramatica kicked a 29-yard field goal that gave the Cowboys a 20-13 lead with 10:15 to go in the game.

The last came as the Cowboys lined up for a chip-shot field goal that would have given them a 23-21 lead with 1:19 remaining.

On the sidelines, Matt Hasselbeck was talking to his receivers about pass routes he wanted when they’d get the ball back. He talked with coach Mike Holmgren about the personnel he wanted in the game. Hasselbeck figured he would likely have about a minute and 45 yards to go to get Josh Brown in position for his fifth game-winning field goal in 2006.

Then Tony Romo gave the Seahawks a gift. Jordan Babineaux’s was a bigger gift when he stopped Romo 6 feet short of the goal line.

Dallas coach Bill Parcells had fretted about it all week. Romo had lost four fumbles the previous week in a numbing, 39-31 loss to lowly Detroit in the regular-season finale.

“He just can’t afford to do that,” Parcells told reporters this week.

Romo’s first bobble Saturday was one that Julius Jones recovered for a big loss. The second, however, was the worst by far.

“I don’t know if I’ve felt this low at any point,” Romo said. “It just hurts real bad right now to think about because I know how hard everybody in that locker room worked to get themselves into position to win that game. For it to end that way and for me to be the cause of is very tough to swallow right now.”

Go ahead and say the Seahawks backed in to the second round. Go ahead and laugh at the Cowboys for gagging one.

In a season when many questioned their heart, the Seahawks won Saturday by proving them wrong at the most crucial time so far this season.

A team has great heart when it battles back from a seven-point fourth-quarter deficit.

A team has great heart when it stands up to two dazzling receivers, Terry Glenn and Terrell Owens, despite injuries to its starting corners that force it to shove replacements who’d never worn a home team jersey before into a playoff game. One, Pete Hunter, was largely responsible for Owens’ below-average day of two catches for 26 yards. He also recovered a fumble.

A team has great heart when it makes a dramatic play when it absolutely has to, as rookie corner Kelly Jennings did when he slapped the ball out of Glenn’s hand, a wilder-than-wild sequence that eventually turned into a safety.

A team has great heart when it absolutely, positively has to have a touchdown and nothing less – not a field goal, not anything else – and does so, as the Seahawks did when Hasselbeck found Jerramy Stevens for a 37-yard TD pass that gave the Seahawks their final lead with 4:24 to play.

Fortunate? You bet they were. Charmed? Maybe. I don’t know enough about the properties of karma to know whether something or someone otherworldly rewarded the Seahawks for surviving injury after injury this season and refusing to fold.

No matter how fortunate or lucky the Seahawks were Saturday – choose whatever adjective you want – don’t deny them their deserved props.

They’re moving on in the playoffs largely because they’re a group of guys who made their own breaks and took advantage of the breaks handed to them.

“We get to play,” Holmgren said. “That’s the fun part of it. We get to keep going.”

How can they possibly top this one?