Oh, Geno! Boy, the vibes, the vibes are fah-all-ing

Why do we watch?

The question is simple enough on its face: what keeps us coming back for more?

With the Seattle Seahawks, with the NFL, with the sport of football in general or even with sports, period — why do we do this to ourselves, when the results are unknown at best, and can wound at least often as they reward? How come?

Think about it. You adopt a team, and it all starts to happen. Fan long enough, and everything happens. Sometimes multiple everythings, everywhere all at once even. Ups and downs take turns or stack on top of each other, playing a ruthless emotional Jenga with our mental health once a week or more. And we voluntarily buckle in for the ride! (Though the voluntary part is debatable, for another day, haha.)

Is there a good reason to invest ourselves, our precious time, plus maybe our limited money, in fandom?

There are many good reasons, but for the sake of simplicity imma boil it down to one: we invest because there’s the promise of a payoff. And since I’m really fuckin’ bad at answering for “we,” I’ll lower the moat to answer for “me” exclusively, and hope some of you will join me in this fortress of rightness.

Starting with the negative statements: I don’t derive the bulk of my fanjoy from a successful transaction. Or a shrewd salary cap maneuver. Or a well-negotiated contract that gives both sides a win. Or a well-executed draft. Or even a good W-L record, to be all the way honest.

I root most lustily for dudes with fun backstories, great vibes, quirky personalities, unique skills, cool attributes. If that translates into victories, all the better. I like wins! Just not as much as sick plays made by compelling people who inspire me to be better.

At a granular level, for the love of God/Pete/Roger, in order for there to be a payoff, the Seahawks just need to be fun. First, they need to nurture the immaculate vibes. Then, they need to be kinda good. Lastly, and this is a cherry on top of the cherry on top, it’s awesome if they’re great.

And let it be said: this first week of March has NOT. Been fun.

Tyler Lockett’s expected release came as… expected, only to be crushed a quarter hour later by DK Metcalf’s bizarrely timed* trade demand.

*or so we thought at the time

If anyone embodied consistency, tricky explosiveness, wholesomeness, excellence and production, it was Tyler, briefly the NFL’s greatest receiver of the last four decades.

Dude published poetry in his spare time, for fudge’s sake. When he wasn’t looking like rejuvenated Steve Largent crossed with Mikhail Baryshnikov.

For his part, Metcalf is a real-life Terminator, with all the toughness and indestructibility implied. He’s indisputably a game-changer, a one-time diva who’s objectively grown up in front of our own eyes. He’s simultaneously a leader, a rare specimen, and a superhero who happens to wear “our” colors. A SportsCenter Top 10 play waiting to happen.

He’s the coolest dude on the field whenever he suits up, and to lose him would be/is heartbreaking. Maybe he comes back for 2025, but probably not, right? And the vibes are wrecked anyway.

If my team had six DKs and won six games, I’d relish the season start to finish. Without a trace of hyperbole, this is irreplaceable content:

Geno Smith’s redemption arc is scarcely worth retelling in this space, where many of you have it memorized. With Geno, I will not miss the red zone picks, but I will mourn every other aspect of his game. The regular fourth quarter comebacks. The imperturbable pocket presence as his so-called protectors let down their guard, dropback after dropback.

The pure leadership. The repeated heroics. The relationship with Pete Carroll that changed him for good and (selfishly) gave me hope for the second act of my own life. For every one of us who’s had to make a fresh start after the first stab at a career or relationship failed, consider again what Carroll did to help Smith reclaim his life. This is meaningful shit, well beyond football.

It’s hard to adequately put into words what it meant to see Geno finally get over the hump in his last meeting with the 49ers, producing with the game-winner via his own legs in the waning seconds. What a way to say goodbye to them, after all the torment he endured at their dirty little hands.

What a payoff.

Those were the moments I’ll remember. Those were the vibes we lost. Gave away, really.

Without Lockett, Metcalf and Smith, the 2025 Seahawks are a far blander facsimile of their recent selves, a generic NFL team that sports a couple dastardly dudes on defense but unknowns on offense potentially holding the whole enterprise back.

Bottom line, they’re abruptly not anywhere near as fun, and unless they strike overlooked quarterbacking gold like they did in 2012 and 2022, they’ll be losers too.

And who wants to invest in that?