Seahawks-49ers Not just the best in the West, the best Period.
The Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers have been in a veritable arms race since the conclusion of the 2012 season. Both teams have very good, innovative, high-risk high-reward GM’s who are visionaries of football talent and have tooled and retooled their teams for the here and now and for the future. Head coaches, Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh are excellent evaluators of talent and masters of implementation with their best players. They are very different in terms of their personalities, but one thing they both share is the drive and energy to create winners and winning programs. Accepting losing is just not an option and their high-energy coaching style attracts players who love to compete and also hate to lose. Oh, there is another similarity that both Pete and Jim share; They overtly this like each other with the white heat of 1000 suns. Likely, their abhorrence for one another stems from their experiences matching up as head coaches in the Pac 12 when Harbaugh was coaching the Stanford Cardinals and Carroll the Trojans of USC. Pete Carroll was wildly successful while coaching USC winning two national championships and winning the Pacific conference seven out of nine seasons he coached. What makes these two coaches dislike each other goes deeper than Pac 12 championships. Jim Harbaugh’s Cardinals are 2-0 against Pete Carroll’s mighty Trojans. One of the games was most memorable for the midfield postgame handshake between Carroll and Harbaugh. Harbaugh-coached Stanford team that strong-armed the Carroll-coached USC Trojans at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 2009. Harbaugh, with a 27-point lead, went for a two-point conversion late in a 55-21 Cardinal victory, which was unsuccessful. At game's end Carroll famously responded by asking his victorious counterpart, "What's your deal?" Last year, Jim Harbaugh and the Niners came to CenturyLink field in Seattle. Earlier in the year, the Seahawks lost at Candlestick Park to the 49ers 13-7 in a very physical and hard-fought battle. It was Russell Wilson’s least effective performance, and Seattle left San Francisco the loser. The story was much different in Seattle in the second to the last game of the regular season. The Seahawks thumped the 49ers 42-13 and had an opportunity to boost the score to 50 points, which would have been three consecutive games scoring 50 points or more for the Seattle Seahawks offense. Cornerback Richard Sherman noticed the scoreboard late in the game and so that there was ample time for Seattle to score an eighth touchdown and go for two to hit another “50 Berger” and thoroughly shame Harbaugh and the 49ers Seahawks style. Pete Carroll answered Sherman “We’re better than that.” Regardless, Harbaugh had to have choked on some crow as it was clear the baton was being handed to the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC West for the near future. This off-season there have already been hostile words spoken back and forth between Seahawks and 49ers players as well as head coaches. This is a rivalry that is only yet marinating in a strong loathing each franchise has for the other and will only add to the flavor of their matchups this season and far beyond.
Carroll is currently the second oldest coach in the NFL at (61), but you’d never know it watching him coach his players in camp or pacing the sidelines during the season. He sets the energy level very high for his football team and requires that his staff and his team function at a high level of energy throughout the season. Harbaugh (49) is an innovative high-energy coach as well, and has had a meteoric rise to success taking the 49ers to the playoffs the last two consecutive seasons, winning the NFC back to back and taking his team to a Super Bowl last year. However, Harbaugh came into a football team already possessing a lot of potential and many star quality talent. Pete Carroll inherited a dilapidated, rapidly aging football team that required over 250 player transactions in the first year alone. There is currently just one player on the roster from the Mike Holmgren coaching tenure (Red Bryant). Carroll may be 61, but he’s one of the most energetic and youthful coaches in the NFL keeping his team loose and having fun, but matching or outdoing his level of energy and excitement for the game. Jim Harbaugh has that same sense of competitive fervor and his team reflects that brand of football that feels like a prizefight as much as it does an NFL football game. One thing’s for certain about the Seahawks and Niners… They don’t like each other; the players, coaches and the fans have a visceral dislike for one another and this ensures at least two games per season where the rest of the nation feels that hate between these teams. These battles promise to be emotionally charged and personally hard-fought. The coaches and the players will deny that the dates for these games are circled on their calendars, but you could be sure that they’re both eager to take each other on no matter where the game is to be played. These aren’t just games to these NFC West rivals, though… These regular-season matchups are fight to the death battles royale for the NFC West crown, with the hopes of it becoming a full-scale war at the NFC championship game.
One thing is for certain and that is that the 49ers and Seahawks are primed and ready to beat the living daylights out of each other, or die trying. The Seahawks and 49ers fans might know it, but just the existence of a rival team makes them the nations most watched football teams when they line up on nationally televised games. Because of this growing NFC West vendetta, the National Football League has scheduled this all out game riot to be televised across the nation and around the world. Both teams are well represented on nationally televised games, but when they meet up together, it becomes must see TV. Dominance has returned to the NFC West and no one in the NFL wants to play either the Seahawks or the Niners at home or away.
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