Whether or not Seattle Seahawks players and coaches agree with ESPN's recent deep dive into their team's post-Super Bowl loss psyche, the piece started a lot of conversations about one of the NFL's best teams.
Warren Moon, a team radio broadcaster and mentor to some Seahawks players like Russell Wilson, has essentially agreed with one of the theses of the story: Some have still not gotten over the Super Bowl XLIX goal-line loss to the Patriots.
"Yeah, they are still having a hangover from two years ago, if you can believe it or not, about losing that Super Bowl in the last minute with the interception on the 1-yard line," Moon told former Steelers quarterback Kordell Stewart, via the Seattle Times. "And with a lot of guys, it just kind of rubbed them the wrong way and they just haven't gotten over it. This team will not be able to move on and really do what they want to do which is win another Super Bowl unless they can somehow put that behind them.
"There are certain guys on the team that just haven't been able to do that and until they are able to do that they are going to continue to keep having a very good football team but a team that is going to probably come up short of their goals because of not being able to let go of the past and letting those things become a hindrance to their success."
It's easy for a fan to say let it go already, but in a way it's kind of endearing that the team's core players have carried the burden this long. We often paint today's football players as distant from the rag-tag, pre-free agency gladiators who were synonymous with one team throughout their careers. This, at least, shows us that wins and losses still resonate.
As for the practical matter at hand (winning games this season and returning to the Super Bowl), this all falls on coach Pete Carroll. Carroll has made a living off of his ability to create positive atmospheres and if this is still festering somewhere deep inside the locker room, he needs to find a way to weed it out for good.
