DEARBORN, Mich. – Shortly after the winning coach and Super Bowl MVP held news conferences in front of hundreds of media members, and a few hours before standing at Qwest Field surrounded by thousands of appreciative fans, Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Holmgren addressed about a dozen reporters at the team hotel and gave messages of pride and hope.
Looking tired from a long night of tossing and turning, Holmgren said that he was inspired by the season his Seahawks had but unfulfilled by the way things ended.
“There’s no reason to apologize for anything,” he said Monday morning, a little more than 12 hours after his team’s 21-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XL. “We lost a football game, and we lost it because of reasons you lose most football games. I wouldn’t say turnovers so much, but mistakes. Mistakes were the main reason.”
Holmgren talked about the uncharacteristic number of penalties (seven), the missed opportunities in Pittsburgh territory, and three long plays that the Seahawks’ defense gave up. He also touched on the performance of tight end Jerramy Stevens, who dropped two passes outright and had three others slip through his grasp with the help of Pittsburgh defenders.
“He’ll bounce back,” Holmgren said. “He’s a grown man. He had a great week at practice, he had a lot of stuff in (the game plan) for him, and he’s played very well down the stretch for us. He helped us get to the Super Bowl.”
If Holmgren had any regrets about Sunday’s game, they might have stemmed from some of the officials’ calls – he didn’t get specific for fear of sounding as if he had sour grapes – as well as a decision by Ford Field personnel to sell Pittsburgh’s “Terrible Towels” inside the stadium while no Seattle version was available.
“I’m sure there were a few non-Pittsburgh fans waving the towels (just) because they were selling the towels” at the stadium, Holmgren said. “And I didn’t see too many green towels being sold. So let’s make that part of it fair.
“Yeah, it was something. It was the first Super Bowl I’ve been involved with, as an assistant coach or a head coach, where it was lopsided that way.”
Later in the afternoon, Holmgren and his players arrived at Qwest Field to some more familiar fans. But even before his team left Detroit, he had a message to all those people who might have been doing some Monday morning mourning.
“I totally understand the hangover today,” he told the small gathering of reporters at The Hyatt hotel in suburban Detroit. “That one I get. They wouldn’t be fans if they didn’t feel that.
“But for all those people who were watching us hoist the NFC championship trophy that night, that was real; that was good stuff. So they can feel good about that. It was disappointing to all of us that we didn’t win (Sunday’s) game. We had our chances.”
In a bit of mourning himself, Holmgren advised not to let the end of the 2005 season wipe out everything else that happened along the way.
“Yeah, it was hard,” he said of the Super Bowl loss, “but things happened this year that give the city and the fans real hope. We’re all a little disappointed this morning, but I’m very, very proud of our football team and what we accomplished this year. We’re going to come back firing away next year.”
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