Week 13: Seattle at Philadelphia

Parity. It’s what sets the NFL apart from all other professional sports, right? That and the fact that football as a sport has somehow been propped up as being more American than a cowboy listening to John Mellencamp in a Corvette while eating a hamburger. We don’t know about how much better persistent mediocrity makes the NFL better, but we heard Chris Berman yelling about it one time, so it must be true.

We suppose it’s nice that every fan base outside of Atlanta, Miami and the Bay Area will get to see their team win somewhere between 5 and 9 games this year, but when was the NFL ever about everybody winning? This is the same league in which dunderheaded hero worship is the rule among announcers and Al Michaels chortles with glee as the Patriots run deep outs when up by 35 points. This is the league that tells us that the odious Bill Parcells, a weeping sore of a DSM-IV case study wrapped in polyester blends and hair dye, is somehow someone we should look up to, in large part because of how much he looks down on everyone else. The game is the game, and the game is great, but the NFL’s brand is to a great degree about combat, dominance, and making mean middle managers feel better about being mean – well, that and it’s also fun to watch sometimes, but the “mean dad” part is definitely a big part of its appeal, too. But while we like the NFL’s long-term parity – most bad teams don’t stay bad forever – this short-term, everybody-wins-7-games-stuff is weak. Bad teams should have bad records, and we don’t believe that 75 percent of NFL teams are somehow average. And so, this week, we get a prime example of the gift parity has given: a middling football game with real playoff implications.

The NFC West-leading Seahawks are – in terms of record and talent – marginally the better of these two teams. They’re sure not what we think of as a division champion – outside of a very active defense and a top-of-his-game Matt Hasselbeck, they’re pretty mediocre – but they’re not awful. Still, their offense has been pretty spotty for most of the season, and their recent bounce towards productivity will likely be flattened by a re-aggravated injury to top receiver D.J. Hackett’s ankle. Without the team’s most productive wideout and with already-fading RB Shaun Alexander hobbled by a knee injury, the Seahawks are a pokey offensive unit getting by thanks to a very good, very aggressive defense.

Only the Giants have more sacks than Seattle’s 35, no team has forced more fumbles (19), and the team gets great work both from its D-line (DE Patrick Kerney’s 10.5 sacks are second-most in the NFL, and linemate Darryl Tapp has 6.5) and linebackers (Julian Peterson has 8 sacks of his own and Lofa Tatupu is one of the NFL’s top tacklers).  In their combination of hefty mustachioed coach, inconsistent offense, and dependable-if-expensive defense, the Seahawks are actually not that unlike the Eagles.

The difference, of course, is that the Seahawks get to play the Rams and 49ers twice this season, while the Eagles draw the Cowboys and Giants twice. Beyond the obvious drag on their record of a fairly tough schedule, though, the Eagles are a tough team to figure out. Their veteran defense still hits very, very hard and remains tough against the run, and should bottle up the uninspiring Maurice Morris with relative ease. The offense, though, has worked only in fits and starts. As good as Philly looked at New England in Week 12 – even with backup A.J. Feeley standing in for the injured Donovan McNabb – they’ve still struggled to score as often as not, and often against defenses weaker than Seattle’s.

Feeley may or may not start again – McNabb is officially doubtful at press time – but the Eagles will likely have a harder time finding space in the middle of the field against the Seahawks linebackers than they did against the Patriots’. Brian Westbrook is a good running back, and Feeley isn’t bad as backups go, but in the end, it all kind of comes back to “blah” for us with these guys. Some teams are 5-6 because of the NFL’s field-flattening parity, and others are that way just because they’re kind of mediocre. And from our experience, mediocre teams lose to just-slightly-better-than-mediocre teams, sometimes even at home.

Seahawks by 4