Apart from game outcomes, the most remarkable team feat so far in the NFL playoffs was the 285 yards of rushing the San Francisco 49ers laid on Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship. In the days since, it resonates a little more in Seattle because numerous post-mortems about the Seahawks have lamented that the 49ers' rushing success will encourage the worst instincts in Pete Carroll next year.

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Let's get this out of the way first: Richard Sherman is going to the Super Bowl. The Seahawks are not.

Let's get this out of the way second: Frank Clark is going to the Super Bowl. The Seahawks are not.

Let's get this out of the way third: The Seahawks season was ended a week ago by a Packers team that not only isn't going to go to Super Bowl LIV in Miami, it may have to present identification documents to be admitted to the 2020 NFL season.

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One of the great things about short-notice travel to and through the Midwest in mid-winter -- let's make that "the one thing" -- is that the harried traveler often finds himself with unexpected time to . . . well, think.

Whether it's slumped in a seat in a nearly closed airport, or behind a snowplow going 15 mph, or waiting in line at 1 a.m. to beg for a room at a crummy motel from a cranky overnight clerk, the mind is free to wander to more intriguing ideas.

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GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Not long after the game, snow began to fall at Lambeau Field. The hard Midwest winter, delayed, was under way. Also underway was an off-season for the Seahawks, who delayed its start until they ran out of absurd ways to confound.

Season-enders are always awkward, especially this season, when so many times they looked deader than dead, only to pop off the gurney. Per usual, against the 13-3 Packers, the Seahawks, populated by more walk-ons than most college teams, looked terrible until they were about to win.

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MILWAUKEE -- Ascending degrees of harshness in a Wisconsin winter:

• Nose hairs freeze and fall out and nostrils bleed, adding accent colors to the "SOS" you've stamped out in the snow
• Sneak onto a dairy farm, kill and gut a cow and crawl into the warm carcass
• Aaron Rodgers says WTF and demands a trade to the Miami Dolphins

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Two Seahawks offensive line positions will be game-time decisions for Sunday's divisional-round playoff game at Green Bay, according to coach Pete Carroll after practice Friday. Left tackle, the key protector of QB Russell Wilson's backside , is the most vulnerable.

Both Duane Brown (knee surgery) and George Fant (groin), the two who have taken most of the snaps at the position this season, were listed on the injury report as questionable. At left guard, Mike Iupati is doubtful with a neck stinger that has lingered.

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For the 10th anniversary of Pete Carroll's hire by the Seahawks on Jan. 10, 2010, a move that stunned the American football universe, I offer something different: A replay of his first Seattle words, not mine, except for these six introductory paragraphs.

The decision to fire coach and well-regarded local guy Jim Mora, groomed to succeed Mike Holmgren, after a single 5-11 season, was surprising enough in Seattle. Carroll's poaching, led primarily by then-CEO Tod Leiweke, from a fabulously successful run at USC, where he was known as "The King of LA," was a shocker across the fruited plain.

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In the lexicon of pro football -- or at least LB Bobby Wagner's version of it -- the predicted weather in Green Bay Sunday is not a snot-freezer, and therefore of minimal consequence to the Seahawks.

"I’ve never been in a game like that, where you sneeze and before the snot comes out your nose it turns into ice," he said Wednesday. "As long as it’s not that, I think we’re going to be good."

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The departures from the NFL playoffs of senior eminences Tom Brady, 42, and Drew Brees, 40, have given rise to speculation that Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers, who turned 36 in December, might be next to succumb to the cruelties of time, gravity and sacks.

The speculation is sharpened by the more obvious observation that the two hottest quarterbacks for the regular season and the playoffs are low-mileage youngsters: Baltimore's Lamar Jackson, in his second year at 23, and Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes, in his third year at 24.

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PHILADELPHIA -- Before engaging in the wailing, lamentations and recriminations about the frequency of homely play Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field, let's have a quick NFL tournament overview.

The New England Patriots are out. The New Orleans Saints are out. The Buffalo Bills are out. The Dallas Cowboys never were in. The Los Angeles Rams never were in.

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Regarding the Seahawks' playoff opener Sunday in Philadelphia, two important things are clear:

Each team has Super Bowl-winning experience, and each team is about two injuries away from being identified only by forensics units.

Friday did bring a bit of an advantage to Seattle, however.

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Sports fans understand that pro football has the highest rate of health casualties of any team endeavor, for all the obvious reasons. But the fact hit home fresh and hard in the Seahawks locker room Wednesday. The three guys garnering most of the media attention ahead of the playoff opener in Philadelphia Sunday were RB Travis Homer, WR John Ursua and TE Jacob Hollister.

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A primary hazard for NFL teams forced to glue together a broken starting lineup with newbies is that the glue often doesn't get a chance to dry.

That appears to have been the problem in back-to-back moments that cost the wounded Seahawks Sunday a chance to host a home playoff game that would have come with a win over San Francisco.

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The screaming will die down next year, or maybe the year after that, regarding the final minute of the final game of the NFL's regular season in its 100th year. When it does, keep in mind that a few inches twice denied, a foul uncalled and a decision messed up, forced upon the Seahawks a 2,400-mile road trip instead of a home playoff game and helped create this fact:

From a first-and-10 at the San Francisco 49ers' 12-yard line in the final minute, the Seahawks, one of the best teams in NFL history regarding fourth-quarter comebacks, had the ball for eight plays. They gained 11.9 yards. They lost the game. At home.

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Here's the transcript of a phone interview Sunday night between pool reporter Tim Booth of the Associated Press and Al Riveron, senior vice president of officiating, who leads the video review team in New York, regarding the final two Seahawks offensive plays in the 49ers' 26-21 win at the Clink.

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As if there wasn't enough about the Seahawks-49ers nationally televised game Sunday night to draw attention, apparently it's anti-hero week too.

After the Seahawks re-hired Marshawn Lynch Monday, former Seahawks bad boy LB Brian Bosworth will raise the 12 flag before the game, the club announced Friday. For those too young to remember, Bosworth posed himself as a ruthless rebel in the fashion of Lynch, with two notable differences: It was a pure con job, and he couldn't walk his talk.

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Even RB Robert Turbin, a backup who made four starts in 81 career NFL games over eight seasons, had to chuckle over the fuss being made about him. Oh, and the other old newbie too.

"Marshawn and I laughed about it earlier today," he said. "It’s like, 'Man, we picked a heck of a week to come back, didn’t we?'

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This week's pop-up carnival that is the Marshawn Lynch re-hire certainly is entertaining. I mean, his first practice was on 12/24, fercripesakes.

Seeing him hug it out at VMAC with Dave Pearson, the Seahawks' longtime PR chieftain, after years of annoying each other, was a splendid attempt at sincerity. No one was buying it, but hey, it's Christmas and the 12-3 49ers show up Sunday. All hands on deck.

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Comebacks in sports have a dubious record. But if Tiger Woods can win the Masters at 43 after all that he's been through, Marshawn Lynch at 33 should be able to get a yard or two.

Even at second and goal at the one-yard line.

If you thought Sunday night's game between the 11-4 Seahawks and 12-3 49ers on national TV already was going to be amped, the Northwest can be taken off Grand Coulee Dam's electrical grid for three hours and the extension cord can be plugged into the Clink.

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For the entire season, the Seahawks were on a tightrope, swaying in the breeze, an almost unprecedented 10-1 in games decided by a single possession. They nearly made it across. Sunday, they fell.

Because there's a minimum of two games left, it can't be said they have hit the canyon floor. But it has certainly grown cold and breezy, and the ground is coming up fast.

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