NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Sunday, January 19th, 2014

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!

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