Recall in September that when the points piled up in most outposts of the NFL, everyone was convinced that next-gen offenses had arrived, with 70-percent passers, hyperkinetic pre-snap motion and short-pass orgies. Defense and the running game were quaint but uncool relics.

Then in the season's championship moment, Fred Flintstone clubbed the crap out of George Jetson.

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Cliff Avril was in an exhibition game during his rookie season with the Detroit Lions when he realized he didn't know his responsibility for the play just called. Before lining up, he quickly asked a veteran defensive-line teammate for help. Instead of helping, the teammate told him to do the opposite of the call.

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After what must be recognized as the most entertaining championship Sunday in NFL history, the sporting nation is left not with the afterglow of a great meal/sex/national park visit/drawing to a full house, but with the prospect of another Super Bowl appearance by the New England Patriots.

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The Seahawks have added another former first-round draft pick. At quarterback.

No, not Rick Mirer or Dan McGwire. But as with those two long-ago Seahawks first-round busts, Paxton Lynch didn't play last season either.

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As we all know, Russell Wilson says something original about as often as the Mariners succeed with a high draft pick. But late in the season, the Seahawks quarterback did offer up something I hadn't recalled hearing from him, which may bode well for his future in Seattle (and perhaps might be a rare good omen for the Mariners).

"I just want to be known as the greatest winner ever," he said.

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In a parity-driven season that suggested much competitive balance, the first eight games  of the NFL post-season had a disappointing number of dominant outcomes. If blowouts were wanted this month, we could have looked up online our 401Ks.

However, the Seahawks' one-and-done appearance in the tournament was at least competitive, and  provided a chance the past weekend to look around to see what's working in the NFL.

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Limping off the AT&T Stadium field with a serious injury Saturday was likely the last glimpse the Seahawks will have of their one-season placekicker, 40-year-old Sebastian Janikowski. The club Friday signed free agent kicker Sam Ficken, 26, most recently with Rams, to start a competition for the 2019 roster spot.

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Pete Carroll would never let a game defeat, even one in the playoffs that ended the season, throw shade on his yippee-skippee, the man's most vital organ and the driver of the franchise.

"It was a blast," he said Monday, two days after the 24-22 loss to the Cowboys in Dallas denied the Seahawks a chance to play the Rams in Los Angeles, a playoff match-up they liked and wanted. "I loved that (Cowboys) game. I know it was ugly and hard. But I loved that we were in it, fighting and clawing and scratching up and down the sidelines, seeing guys find their belief, and again rediscover that belief, and why we should keep believing.

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DALLAS -- If there were a Hall of Sporting Justice -- a truly bad idea, actually, taking away the fans' fun of hating the foe and demanding the heads of coaches, players and referees, in favor of the rule of honesty -- it would declare unanimously that the better team won Saturday's little tilt here in Texas.  No appeals possible.

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The season-ending hip fracture to S Delano Hill disclosed this week completes an unusual sequence that lurks in the background of the Seahawks wild-card playoff game against the Cowboys in Dallas Saturday evening.

On the injured reserve list, the Seahawks have had an entire starting secondary.

That accounting doesn't even include Kam Chancellor, nor the departed Richard Sherman, who was recovering from injury when he was cut and signed with the 49ers.

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After the final weekend of the season, eight NFL teams had head coaching vacancies. They included guys long in the job (Marvin Lewis, Bengals, 16 seasons; Mike McCarthy, Packers, 13) and a short-timer (Steve Wilks, Cardinals, one).

Also dispatched: The Jets' Todd Bowles, four seasons; Cleveland's Hue Jackson, Miami's Adam Gase, Tampa Bay's Kirk Koetter, three each, and Denver's Vance Joseph, two.

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Football coaches and players never admit to easing up. But without question, the Seahawks, absent any substantive playoff incentive Sunday against the ever-annoying Arizona Cardinals, let down their guard.

Actually, that's plural -- guards.

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The Seahawks' run of success through the second decade of the 21st century has endured on an axis of power by four men remarkable in their fields -- Paul Allen, Tod Leiweke, Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson.

Longtime fans need no explainers about the quartet's feats. But as the Seahawks prepare for their seventh trip to the playoffs in nine seasons, an appreciation seems worthwhile, since disruption may be in the offing.

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If you're looking for a single impactful measurement that defines how the Seahawks have come to success so unexpectedly in 2018, here's my premium contender: Not only do the Seahawks lead the NFL in turnover ratio (24 takeaways against 10 giveaways, four fewer giveaways than the nearest team), the giveaways are tied for the fewest in single-season league history.

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Before the question had begun to be asked, the Seahawks delivered a timely present to fans on Christmas Eve. The contract of coach Pete Carroll, the winningest coach in club history, was extended through 2021.

The death of longtime owner Paul Allen caused inevitable speculation about the franchise's direction. But Jody Allen, his sister and now team chairperson and trustee of the Paul G. Allen Trust, put an end to it with the surprise announcement Monday.

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After signing with the 49ers following his surprising firing in Seattle, Richard Sherman declared that the Seahawks had "lost their way." It was a rebuke that stung because, despite a respectable 9-7 record, they did indeed miss the the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons, and looked bad on occasion doing it.

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Ahead of a Sunday night, prime-time game against AFC leader Kansas City, a number of end-of-season wounded are filling the Seahawks' infirmary and draining the starting lineup. FS Tedric Thompson is out, and SS Bradley McDougald is returning from out-of-town treatment for a knee problem, while OLs Germain Ifedi and D.J. Fluker are hurting.

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If you thought RB Chris Carson's touchdown run against the 49ers Sunday was the Seahawks' most startling one-yarder since the mark of the Beast (Mode), imagine what he might have done had he known it was fourth down.

QB Russell Wilson "was out there hurrying everything up," he said this week. "I didn't realize it was fourth down. We got back on the sideline (after scoring), and Mike Davis said that was crazy on fourth down. I was like, 'Fourth down?  Wow.'"

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Bobby Wagner will play in his fifth consecutive Pro Bowl and punter Michael Dickson his first as Seahawks representatives at the annual all-star game Jan. 27 in Orlando. Balloting results were released Tuesday by the NFL.

Seven other Seahawks were listed as alternates, who can play if starters are unavailable: RB Chris Carson, DE Frank Clark, SS Bradley McDougald,  LG J.R. Sweezy, QB Russell Wilson and linebacker K.J. Wright. Tyler Lockett made it as a return specialist.

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What did Seahawks coach Pete Carroll have to say about Sebastian Janikowski?

"Seabass was a little late with the kick. He took a little extra time, and it threw the timing off a bit. That was the difference in how the ball flew."

Oh wait. You meant on the next play.

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