Seahawks Should Look to 2010 For Their Own Cautionary Tale

The Seahawks will be heavily favored to beat the Eagles in Sunday's wild card match, but the franchise's own recent history suggests they can't sleep on the underdog at home.

Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

The Seahawks head into Philadelphia as a one-point favorite over the host Eagles in the NFC Wild Card round.

Seattle, better than most, knows what it is like to play in a playoff game involving an average team that limped into the playoffs with an underwhelming record in a weak division.

Thus, the Seahawks know that this weekend will be anything but a cake walk to victory.

In 2010, it was Seattle that crawled into the playoffs, becoming the first and only NFL team to make the playoffs with a losing record at 7-9 in a year where the NFC West title couldn’t be given away for free.

As a division winner, Seattle hosted their playoff game against the 11-5 New Orleans Saints, who were fresh off a Super Bowl title the previous season.

A division winner with a mediocre record hosting a wild card team with an 11-5 record and an established Pro Bowl quarterback. Sound familiar?

This time, the Seahawks role is reversed as the favored, road 11-5 team. In the 2010 scenario, it did not end well for the favored, big bad Saints in Seattle. The 7-9 Seahawks provided one of the biggest upsets in NFL playoff history, beating New Orleans 41-36. 

During that game, Marshawn Lynch produced perhaps the most famous play, or at least certainly the most famous offensive play, of the decade in what is simply known as “Beast Quake.”

Lynch, now part of the Seahawks once again in 2019, can tell this Seahawks team what it’s like to play in a playoff game where one team is heavily favored.

The Saints were heavily favored by 10.5 points going into that matchup. The game started as expected, with New Orleans jumping out to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. A Julius Jones fumble recovered by linebacker David Hawthorne set up the Seahawks with a game-tying field goal and changed momentum, as Seattle took the lead into halftime behind three first half touchdown passes by Matt Hasselbeck.

Nursing a four-point lead in the fourth quarter, Lynch sealed the victory and created seismic activity in the process with his timeless 67-yard touchdown run, shocking the 11-5 Saints.

This should be a cautionary tale for the 11-5 Seahawks coming into Philadelphia. The Eagles are now the ones that are being doubted. The media is already crowning the Seahawks the winner.

As one of the greatest college football coaches, Nick Saban said, talk like that is “rat poison” for the favored team, which in this case is Seattle.

The Seahawks cannot afford to come into the City of Brotherly Love and take the beat-up Eagles lightly. It will be their undoing.

The Eagles are coming in hot, despite the devastating injuries that have piled up on both sides of the ball, especially among receivers. Philadelphia is coming into the playoffs having won four straight and as history has shown, sometimes it’s not the best teams that make a deep run, but the hottest.

Only the Ravens, Chiefs, and Packers are coming in with longer winning streaks than the Eagles. Enough said.

Quarterback Carson Wentz is playing his best football of the season despite missing his top three targets, throwing seven touchdowns without an interception in the last four games.

The Eagles, like the Seahawks in 2010, are being scoffed and laughed at as the division “winner” that “has” to play in the playoffs by default, despite not being “worthy.”

The Saints found out just how worthy the Seahawks were in 2010.

The 2019 Eagles are a better team than the 2010 Seahawks and have the coaching and quarterback to be a tough first-round out. Seattle needs to be prepared for the Eagles’ best shot, because they are going to get it.