PHOENIX — If anyone affiliated with the Seattle Seahawks is qualified to talk about greatness, it’s linebackers coach Ken Norton Jr.
As player, Norton won three straight Super Bowls, two with the Dallas Cowboys and one with the San Francisco 49ers, and as an assistant coach he has won both a college national championship and another Super Bowl ring. Oh, and let’s not forget that Norton is the son of the heavyweight champ who once broke Muhammad Ali’s jaw.
And when Norton looks at these current Seahawks, who are attempting to become the first repeat champions since Sunday’s opponent, New England, did it a decade ago, he sees a team capable of establishing a similar legacy to the great franchises he played for, as well as the one they’re facing in Super Bowl XLIX.
“I think that if you’re talking about Super Bowl winning teams, this team is still in progress,” Norton said. “You can’t win one and think you’re a dynasty — you’ve got to win several. I think they’re in the middle of their prime right now. I think that history will judge them once it’s all over, so it’s important for us to really understand how important this time is for us, and that the window to be really good is short.
“We have all our really good players maturing at the same time, and we do have a group of fantastic, fantastic ball players all at the prime of their life and the prime of their career. So they better take advantage of it now because the window closes, and it’s on to another team.”
Of course, for the Seahawks to be mentioned in the same breath as franchises like the Cowboys, 49ers, Patriots and Steelers, for this talk about a “dynasty” to really mean anything, they need to win Sunday and then maybe add another Lombardi Trophy or two in the next few years.
And for the Seahawks to go from promising young defending champion to budding dynasty, they fittingly will have to go through the franchise that has set the standard for more than a decade. When you strip away all the silly distractions from the past two weeks — deflated footballs, Marshawn Lynch and the media, everything about Media Day — you get one spectacular Super Bowl matchup.
If the Patriots win Super Bowl No. 4 under Bill Belichick, they will add to their legacy as the best franchise of their era, while Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady will strengthen their already impressive resumes as two of the best ever at their respective jobs.
If Seattle wins, however, this might be a passing of the torch in the NFL. A win Sunday would make the Seahawks not just repeat champs, but repeat champs with a great chance of winning more. Quarterback Russell Wilson isn’t going anywhere, and much of Seattle’s dominant defense is locked up for multiple years. Pieces will change from year to year, but with the young nucleus Seattle has in place, it is set up to win for a long time.
The Seahawks won’t allow themselves to worry about their legacy right now, but they admire what New England has accomplished, and Seahawks coach Pete Carroll considers Belichick the standard in the NFL since, coincidentally enough, he replaced Carroll in New England.
“I think to talk about that when you’re playing games and in the middle of all this is really — there’s kind of no place for it,” Carroll said. “It’s just something that you look back at and you see after the fact. I know it’s fun to project maybe this is what’s happening. A dynasty is what New England has done, to return as their division champs for so many years. I mean, it’s ridiculous the numbers that they’ve put up, and to be a first-round-bye team for 10 times or something in the last 12 years or whatever the heck it is — those are ridiculous numbers.”
But while the Seahawks know that thinking about their legacy is probably the best way to damage it, that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t think about what’s at stake in this game. In addition to the two teams trying to make history in their own ways, this is a chance for two coaches to add another big accomplishment to careers full of them — a fourth ring for Belichick or a second for Carroll, who could be the first coach to own two AP college football titles and two Super Bowl titles.
For Wilson, Sunday is a chance to cement his status as one of the game’s best quarterbacks by becoming the youngest quarterback to win two Super Bowls. For Marshawn Lynch, who has already rushed for 100 or more yards in five of nine postseason games, including some very memorable touchdown runs, Sunday is a chance to go down as one of the best postseason backs in history. And for the Seahawks defense, this is a chance to back up the “greatest ever” talk.
“I am too young to be thinking about legacy right now, but sometimes you don’t have to say anything because your work speaks for itself,” safety Earl Thomas said. “So we definitely have that on the table.”
If a defense that has led the league in points allowed for three consecutive seasons can dominate a future Hall of Fame quarterback in the Super Bowl for a second straight year, there will be no denying this group’s place in history.
“I think we’ll be the Paul Bunyans of the NFL,” defensive end Michael Bennett said when asked about the defense’s legacy. “We’ll be the best.”
But if the Seahawks are going to repeat, if they are going to start up the dynasty discussion in earnest, they’ll do it because, for now at least, their legacy is the last thing on their minds.
“A wise man once told me that once you start counting, that’s when you’re done,” Norton said. “You know when you’re young and you’re trick-or-treating, and you’ve got all your candy? While you’re getting the candy, you didn’t count them, but when you got home when you were done, you started going through your candy and started dispersing. That’s when you’re done. So right now, we’re still collecting the candy, and we can’t count quite yet.”
Herald Columnist John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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