Seattle Seahawks vs. New Orleans Saints: 'Hawks Win over Saints Hardly an Upset

Upon the conclusion of the Seattle Seahawks victory over the New Orleans Saints in Saturday’s Wild Card Playoff Game, the victory was immediately sensationalized by the NBC television crew as an historic upset. Why this is the case I have no idea. This is, of course, if you look at the game for what it actually was.

Granted, the Seahawks arrived in the playoffs having won the worst division in football. How often do you see a division with nobody with as much as a .500 record?

The angle taken by NBC was that this “weak” division champion had just upset the defending world champions. Please.

The Seahawks fell behind by 10 early in this game yet exposed the Saints' soft defense immediately thereafter en route to a 41-36 win at Qwest Field.

First of all, if a team favored to win any game gives up a 40-burger, no matter what the circumstances, it was no upset. That merely shows that the betting line was way, way off.  

The Seahawks were supposed to be a team in almost complete rebuilding mode, take away the presence of quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and linebacker Lofa Tatupu. Seattle is in its first year under head coach Pete Carroll, who obviously bailed from the college ranks at USC at just the right time…not a coincidence I can assure you. Nonetheless, Carroll is a proven winner and completely understands the importance of big games and how to approach them. An upset win for Seattle? No way.

The Saints enjoyed a miracle ride last season, which ended with the first Super Bowl appearance and win for New Orleans. But ever since losing their first game to the Dallas Cowboys with a record of 13-0 in 2009, the Saints have proven to be quite beatable. After that loss to Dallas, the Saints would lose the rest of their regular season games before heating back up in the playoffs.

Don’t get me wrong, the Saints are a good team. You don’t win a Super Bowl unless you have some very significant strengths. But one can’t honestly say that New Orleans is great. I felt last year that the Saints had a very soft defense whose personnel scares absolutely nobody, especially in the front seven. They can certainly create turnovers when Drew Brees and his offensive weapons jack up big leads against paltry defenses, but when that does not happen the Saints are not that successful.

Since that 13-0 start to begin last season, New Orleans is just 14-9, counting postseason. Not bad, but far from great.

The Saints secondary can’t cover anybody and if you saw Marshawn Lynch’s 67-yard touchdown run that had to make Earl Campbell smile, you can see that the New Orleans defense is not even good. Saints cornerback Tracy Porter may have been last year’s postseason hero for the Saints, but he was tossed like a rag doll on this particular play which essentially finished the story to this year's Saints season just like his pick six of Peyton Manning in Super Bowl XLIV.

It should also be noted that the Saints had already beaten the ‘Hawks this season on Week 11 at the Superdome. The defending world champions, whatever that means in today’s NFL, were lit up by a Seattle offense that scored an average of just 19.4 points per game. On Saturday they more than doubled that average.

This is not to say that Seattle is on their way to Arlington, Texas for the Super Bowl. Then again, Hasselbeck has guided this team to the big show once already and so it is not a stretch to suggest that he could do it again.

But let’s not rank this game as an historic upset. The New York Jets victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III was an historic upset. If you watched this game from start to finish, nothing at all was shocking about this Seattle victory.

Super Bowl champions often fail to even make the playoffs the following season, let alone defend the title. It has been almost 15 years since a team without questionable rule tampering (sorry Bill Belichick) issues and punishment has even won back-to-back Super Bowls.

Regardless of the records of each of these two teams heading into the post-season, let's remember who was the division winner and who was the wild card. Each played their roles to perfection.

Nice try NBC.

This was no upset.

It was definitely not shocking.