Seattle Seahawks advance to Super Bowl, Pacific Northwest celebrates big playoff win

For only the sec­ond time in fran­chise his­to­ry, the Seat­tle Sea­hawks have found their way to the Super Bowl, the most watched sport­ing event in the world and the annu­al cham­pi­onship game of the Nation­al Foot­ball League.

Seat­tle punched its tick­et by beat­ing its divi­sion rival, the San Fran­cis­co 49ers, for the sec­ond time this sea­son in a fierce­ly con­test­ed game at Cen­tu­ryLink Field in SoDo. The Sea­hawks got off to an inaus­pi­cious start when star quar­ter­back Rus­sell Wil­son fum­bled the ball, which set up San Fran­cis­co’s first field goal. The 49ers lat­er tacked on a touch­down to take a ten to noth­ing lead.

But Seat­tle ral­lied, even­tu­al­ly tying the game in the third quar­ter with a big touch­down run by Mar­shawn Lynch that elec­tri­fied the stadium.

Rus­sell Wil­son lat­er found Husky alum Jer­maine Kearse on a fourth down play to retake the lead after San Fran­cis­co answered with its own touch­down. After allow­ing Col­in Kaeper­nick to rack up yards in the first half by run­ning the ball him­self, the Sea­hawks’ defense final­ly got to the 49ers quar­ter­back, first forc­ing a fum­ble and then pick­ing off a pass after fail­ing to cap­i­tal­ize on the fumble.

The game end­ed with yet anoth­er inter­cep­tion, as Kaeper­nick tried to mount an eleventh hour come­back by con­nect­ing with Michael Crab­tree in the end­zone. Unfor­tu­nate­ly for Kaeper­nick, Richard Sher­man was there to tip the ball into the hands of Mal­com Smith, giv­ing the Sea­hawks the ball and the NFC title.

Fire­works explod­ed over Puget Sound and tick­er tape flood­ed Cen­tu­ryLink Field as the Sea­hawks began cel­e­brat­ing only their sec­ond-ever con­fer­ence title. Rau­cous fans in Pio­neer Square spilled out into the streets to party.

And the region’s elect­ed lead­ers and insti­tu­tions took to Twit­ter to remind their coun­ter­parts in Cal­i­for­nia to make good on their friend­ly wagers.

Here’s a run­down of some of the wagers:

• Ed Mur­ray vs. Edwin Lee: The may­ors of Seat­tle and San Fran­cis­co wagered sweets and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice on the out­come of the game. Had the 49ers won, Ed Mur­ray would have owed Lee some ice cream from Mol­ly Moon’s and Theo Choco­late. Since the Sea­hawks won, Lee will have to send Mitchell’s Ice Cream and Poco Dolce Choco­lates to Mur­ray. In addi­tion, Lee must now help Mur­ray raise $10,000 for a Seat­tle food bank.
• Jay Inslee vs. Jer­ry Brown: The gov­er­nors of Wash­ing­ton and Cal­i­for­nia wagered a case of their state’s finest wine on the out­come of the game. Since the Sea­hawks won, Gov­er­nor Jer­ry Brown will need to set­tle the bet by send­ing a ship­ment north to Olympia.
• The San Fran­cis­co Giants vs. the Seat­tle Mariners: The Sea­hawks and 49ers’ MLB coun­ter­parts wagered a pho­to of their mas­cots pay­ing trib­ute to the oth­er city’s team. In the event of a 49ers vic­to­ry, the Mariner Moose was to have posed for a pho­to doing a Kaeper­nick. But, since the Sea­hawks won, Lou the Seal had to pose for a pho­to feast­ing on Skit­tles.
• Cal­train vs. Sound Tran­sit: The two agen­cies that oper­ate com­muter rail ser­vices for the Bay Area and Puget Sound, Cal­train and Sound Tran­sit, wagered a pho­to of their chief exec­u­tives wear­ing the oth­er team’s col­ors, to be post­ed on Face­book. Since the Sea­hawks won, Cal­train has con­ced­ed they going to have to find some Sea­hawks team appar­el for their CEO to wear.
• The Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge vs. the Bay Bridge: The peo­ple behind the unof­fi­cial Twit­ter accounts for the Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge and the San Fran­cis­co-Oak­land Bay Bridge wagered some of their favorite local cof­fee on the game. Since the Sea­hawks won, the per­son behind the Bay Bridge account has to pay up. And he or she is being a good sport about it.
• Geek­Wire vs. Re/Code: Seat­tle area tech­nol­o­gy blog Geek­Wire and Bay Area tech­nol­o­gy blog Re/Code wagered a guest post and treats on the out­come of the game. Since the Sea­hawks won, Kara Swish­er and Walt Moss­berg’s crew owe Team Geek­Wire a col­umn.
• Nan­cy Pelosi vs. the Wash­ing­ton Demo­c­ra­t­ic House del­e­ga­tion: House Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Nan­cy Pelosi wagered del­i­ca­cies and brag­ging rights on the out­come of the game with Rick Larsen, Jim McDer­mott, Adam Smith, Suzan Del­Bene, Den­ny Heck, and Derek Kilmer. Had the 49ers won, 49ers win, Pelosi would have received Theo’s choco­late from Con­gress­man Jim McDer­mott, Brown & Haley Almond Roca tof­fees from Con­gress­man Adam Smith, Fis­ch­er fair scones from Con­gress­man Den­ny Heck, craft gin from Everett’s Blue­wa­ter Dis­till­ing in Con­gress­man Rick Larsen’s dis­trict, Wood­inville wine and smoked salmon from Con­gress­woman Suzan Del­Bene, and apples from Amy’s Deca­dent Choco­lates cour­tesy of Con­gress­man Derek Kilmer. Since the Sea­hawks won, our del­e­ga­tion will get San Fran­cis­co sour­dough bread from Boudin’s Bak­ery and choco­late from Ghi­rardel­li and TCHO.

We will be keep­ing our spe­cial NPI Advo­cate Sea­hawks name­plate up for a cou­ple more weeks, as Seat­tle is head­ed to MetLife Sta­di­um for Super Bowl XXXIII. The Sea­hawks will be play­ing the AFC cham­pi­on Den­ver Bron­cos, who hap­pen to be the NFL’s oth­er num­ber one seed. It should be a good game. We’ll be root­ing for the Hawks to win their very first Super Bowl title!