RENTON — At some point, the Seattle Seahawks hope to look back on their Super Bowl XLIX loss as a moment that made them better, that made them stronger, that propelled them to future success.
For most players, however, that day hasn’t come just yet.
On Tuesday, the pain of Sunday’s 28-24 Super Bowl loss to New England was still too fresh. Two days after their season finished just one yard short of a repeat championship, players were back at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center to pack up their belongs and have one final team meeting with head coach Pete Carroll.
There was an understandably somber mood in the locker room as players packed up their gear, and many declined to talk to the media or had little to say when they did.
“I don’t know, guys, I don’t really have too many answers,” tight end Luke Willson said after attempting to answer a few questions. “I’m sorry. It is what it is.”
It’s hard to blame anyone for not yet wanting to relive what happened in Arizona two days earlier, when the Seahawks could have been the first team in a decade to repeat as champions if they only could have gained one more yard, or if a defense that had been so dominant in the second half of the season could have only protected a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter.
“Sunday was devastating, but we’re a close team and we’ll stick together and get through this, and we’ll come back stronger,” tight end Tony Moeaki said. “Everyone’s going to feel this for a little bit.”
Punter Jon Ryan summed up the mood saying, “Obviously right now it’s a lot of questions, frustration, sadness, anger … That’s part of the process.”
Next in the process is taking some time away to get right, both physically and emotionally. As much as the Seahawks treat every game the same in preparation, nobody will deny that this loss, both because of the stakes and how the game ended, hurts in a different way.
“It’s a football game, but it’s bigger than that,” Carroll said Tuesday on 710 ESPN Seattle. “It’s way more than that. … We just faced something that is as unique of a slap in the face as you could ever get.”
For Carroll, the pain of the loss, “hit me like a ton of bricks today, it took days for me to get to that point today where I would let that feeling wash over me. It’s about resiliency. You have to face these kinds of difficult times to be as strong as you can possibly get.”
Building strength from this difficult loss will be vital for the Seahawks going forward, but for now they are still healing. That the difference between the scene we saw in Seattle’s locker room Tuesday and last year’s parade with hundreds of thousands of fans can be one play, one yard, one gambling rookie cornerback, is an example both of what makes sports so thrilling and also so heart-wrenching.
One more yard and the Seahawks are trying to deal with a different challenge this offseason, handling all the distractions that would come with another title. Instead the challenge is recovering from heartbreak.
What the recovery process doesn’t include for the Seahawks, however, is second-guessing the fateful interception that decided the game. Carroll again backed up the call on his radio show, and quarterback Russell Wilson, who said he has re-watched the game film 12 times, said, “I had no doubt. I had no doubt in the play call. I still don’t to this day. I just wish we had made the play.”
“It looked wide open — open enough, I shouldn’t say wide open — but it looked open enough to get it in there and make the play,” Wilson said. “I thought we were going to. When I threw it, I was like, ‘touchdown, second Super Bowl ring, here we go.’ And it didn’t happen … (Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler) made a phenomenal play. Great instinct play by him.”
And because of that great play by Butler, the Seahawks are recovering instead of celebrating. Eventually the Seahawks hope to be better for this experience, but for now they’re just trying to get over it.
“You take your mind off it, you do things don’t remind you of it,” said receiver Doug Baldwin, who noted he hadn’t slept yet since the game. “You spend time with your family, you take a vacation. I know I’m going to sit in my house and play video games and watch movies all day. You find healthy ways to cope with it.
“We’ll be fine, we’ll be OK. … Obviously right now it’s still fresh in our minds. Being on the 1-yard line with a chance to win the game and it coming out the way it did, it’s going to hurt for a long time.”
Somewhere down the road, this Super Bowl heartbreak can turn into a positive for the Seahawks, just like their playoff loss in Atlanta helped motivate the eventual championship-winning team in 2013. That day, however, isn’t here yet for a team still trying to recover from a season that finished one yard short of history.
Herald Columnist John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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