I think the Seahawks will lose.

Sorry, but I’m having a hard time seeing us go all the way to Atlanta, playing a well-rested, talented Falcons team, and coming away victorious.  I think the Seahawks are clear underdogs, meaning that if you played this game 100 times, the Seahawks would lose well over 50% of the time.  I think it’ll take nearly a perfect game to come away victorious.  There’s probably a 2% chance of the Seahawks blowing them out, maybe a 30% chance of the Seahawks squeaking out a victory, a 50% chance of the Falcons winning by one score, and the rest devoted to a Falcons blowout.

We’ve seen this game from these Seahawks before.  Just last year in the Divisional Round, the underdog Seahawks went into Carolina, saw themselves losing 31-0 at halftime, and scrambled their way to a 31-24 defeat.  But, it took the Seahawks scoring on nearly every second half possession to get it that close, and quite frankly, it took the Panthers taking their foot off the gas and coasting to victory.

We saw something relatively similar two years ago against the Packers.  We might not have been underdogs in that game, but we were nevertheless facing a hungry team with a fantastic offense, and we found ourselves down 16-0 at halftime and 19-7 with under 4 minutes to go in the game, before a miracle of all miracles saw us win 28-22 in overtime.

Or, HEY, I know!  What about the 2012 season’s playoffs?  Underdog Seahawks, Divisional Round, in Atlanta … 20-0 Falcons at halftime!  Miracle comeback, blah blah blah, lost on a last minute field goal 30-28.

The Seahawks, in the playoffs, have an incredible knack for not showing up whatsoever in the first halves of ballgames, before turning it on in the second halves, making furious comebacks, and sometimes sticking the landing, but more often than not falling flat on our faces.

Not for nothing, but you tend to see this happen in a lot of our regular season losses too.   The maddening thing is:  the Seahawks have the talent to beat anyone.  It’s not like we’re talking about the Browns, or even the Lions for that matter.  There are still healthy Pro Bowlers and All Pros up and down this lineup.  Russell Wilson, Doug Baldwin, Jimmy Graham, Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright, Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Jon Ryan.  Studs, one and all!  I’m not a connoisseur of the Atlanta Falcons’ roster, but I’d wager we have more great players than they do, at more key positions.

But, for some reason, we come out flat in games EXACTLY like this one.  Wilson comes out misfiring.  The O-Line gets overwhelmed.  The running game can’t get going.  Jermaine Kearse gets called for pass interference.  Steven Hauschka misses a field goal.  The D-Line fails to get home.  The middle of the field get shredded.  The linebackers who seemingly show up each and every game are conspicuously absent.  We go down double-digits, try to recover, go down even further, and go into halftime trying to talk ourselves into a comeback while actively despising this team and wishing it didn’t ALWAYS have to be the Cardiac Kids in the 4th quarter.

Just because the Seahawks CAN beat everyone gives us a false sense of security that they WILL beat everyone.  And when they don’t, it’s always the fucking same.  Yet, for some reason, it catches us off guard and it feels like the first time all over again.

Well, not THIS time!  You’re not suckering me into believing.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still be watching, and I’ll still be rooting like crazy.  But, if being a “real fan” means you have to blindly believe they’re going to win every single game, then I’m sorry, but you’ve come to the wrong guy.

Best case scenario, I hope the Seahawks can get the ball back, down one score, with two minutes left.  I suppose you can’t ask for much more than that.  I just hope we succeed in getting that score, and I hope we don’t leave too much time on the clock.