The Patriots hope to keep their playoff hopes alive today when they play the Seahawks at Qwest Field. Bill Belichick's boys could not be in a better place. The Seahawks - Super Bowl participants just three years ago - are awful. They are 2-10 under lame-duck coach Mike Holmgren. In the NFL today, only the Bengals and Lions are worse than the Hawks.
Seattle fans can be excused if they show up with paper bags on their heads this afternoon. Losing has become a way of life here in the land of Boeing and Microsoft. Dr. Frasier Crane doesn't have enough hours in a day to soothe the fears and frustrations of the fandom.
Remember the once-mighty Mariners? They won 116 games in 2001. They were the Rolling Stones of baseball. They had Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr., and Alex Rodriguez. They participated in a classic playoff series against the Yankees in 1995. They play in a spectacular ballpark with a retractable roof.
But the baseball glory days are long gone. The Mariners still have Ichiro Suzuki (who makes Terrell Owens look like a team player), but fans would rather watch the Moose on his motorcycle. The Mariners lost 101 games last year, second-most in baseball. They did it with a payroll of $118 million. It's one thing to be bad, like the Pirates; it's something else to be bad and overpaid.
What about the Sonics, you ask? Don't. It's even worse. The Sonics, who won the city's only major championship in 1979 and made it to the NBA Finals as recently as 1996, have left the building (Key Arena). They have left the city. Yesterday's Seattle SuperSonics are today's Oklahoma City Thunder. The Sonics bolted after 41 years and still they are terrible. The old Sonics/new Thunder are 2-19 after last night's 105-99 loss in Miami. They are the worst team in the NBA. And Seattle misses them madly.
College football? You don't even want to know. Washington, a Rose Bowl participant in 2001, finished 0-12 with yesterday's loss to Cal, coach Tyrone Willingham's final game. Willingham went 11-37 since coming to Washington in 2005. Washington State went 2-11 this year, including losses of 58-0, 69-0, and 66-3. When the Huskies and Cougars met in the famed Apple Cup Nov. 22, it took two overtimes to decide who was worse. State won the Crabapple Cup, 16-13.
