It was bound to happen sooner or later... the iconic Washington DC football team with a storied past would meet the Pacific Northwest's football team from the "other" Washington in a game that means something more than a win during the regular season.
The Redskins is a team with a long history of heroes, Super Bowls and dozens of Hall of Famers. The Seahawks is as close as the NFL comes to having a foreign team in its roster, and whose only Super Bowl appearance resulted in a loss due to the the worst officiated championship game in history.
The Skins stubbornly cling to a name that allegedly offends some people, and it is also one of the most famous and recognizable names in professional sports. As far as Seattle, I don't even know if a Seahawk is a real bird, although someone once told me that it was another name for an Osprey, which is some kind of sea bird that eats fish.
The Skins, even through all of their woes over the last few years, are still the Skins, and you can always count on seeing them on all the highlight reviews. Last night I spent several hours watching football and not once did I see any Seattle highlights in any of the half time, post game or any time of the day shows, after all, who outside of the Pacific Northwest follows that team?
But the one thing that Seattle has always been able to do, in good years and in bad years, is to be able to beat anyone and lose to anyone on any given Sunday. And even in their worst years, most NFL teams would rather play in Beirut, Baghdad or Damascus than in Seattle, and thus the Skins should be grateful that in spite of having a worse record that the Seahawks, they are hosting them at home rather than in Starbucksland.
This will be an interesting game; as in the last few weeks the Seahawks have opened a most impressive can of offensive whoop-ass which is sure to test the Skins' suspicious secondary.
Not only that, but because they might as well play in a foreign country, most football fans (especially DMV Skin fans) are not aware that Seattle is also led by a rookie quarterback, a little guy who may in fact be as good, and in my opinion better, than celebrated other rookie quarterbacks Andrew Luck and (here it comes DMV) RGIII.
The Seahawks' appearances on national TV are counted in dog years, even when they win their division (which in the last few years has been quite often) and thus it is understandable why most people would debate that Russell Wilson is as good as Luck or RGIII - until last week, they hadn't seen Wilson play.
Because he is such a game-changer in a place as visible as the DMV, you can bet the family farm that RGIII will win the Rookie of the Year award. And yet his amazing quarterback ratings and stats are almost exactly the same as Wilson's.
Which is why Wilson will try to outdo RGIII when the two Washingtons meet.
I don't know which team will win; both teams are playing exceptionally well, and both teams deserve to move on.
Go Ospreys Hawks!
