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| ALSO SEE Game of the Week: Chiefs at Seahawks Garber: Paging Oliver Stone Focal Point: Grbac vs. Kitna It's now or never for Seattle Left at a loss Playoff scenarios for Week 16 | | | |
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| ESPN.com NFL | |  | |
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 | Wednesday, December 22 Same old story in Seattle? Special to ESPN.com | |||
The Seattle Seahawks are used to this. Mike Holmgren is not.
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| Just about everything has gone wrong for Todd Peterson and the Seahawks over the last four weeks. |
Just a month ago, Holmgren's Seahawks were 8-2 and flying toward an AFC West title with visions of home-field advantage in the playoffs dancing in their heads. Seattle had a three-game lead over its nearest competition for the AFC West title.
The Seahawks were finally realizing their talent and doing something with it, and Holmgren apparently was leading them to the promised land.
A month later, though, Seattle finds itself not only mired in a four-game losing streak -- something Holmgren had never experienced in the NFL before -- but on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. The 'Hawks are now one game out of first place in a division most people thought they'd sewn up in November.
Though some in Seattle would argue that the Seahawks' season came down to -- and crashed with -- last week's 36-30 overtime loss to Denver, their season truly comes down to Sunday's game against the Kansas City Chiefs in Seattle.
The Seahawks' battle this week will be to put the last month behind them and think about the positives ahead.
Although the Chiefs, who have won their last four games to coincide with Seattle's slide, are in sole possession of first place in the West, a win Sunday would erase a lot of Seahawk sins.
Because the Seahawks already have defeated Kansas City once this season, a win Sunday would put them back into the driver's seat to win the division, based on the head-to-head tiebreaker.
Should the Seahawks (8-6) lose, however, they can get into the postseason only if Buffalo drops its final two games.
If the Seahawks finish with an identical record as the Bills, they would get the wild-card berth by virtue of their victory against Buffalo earlier in the season. Buffalo plays at New England this week and concludes the regular season at home against Indianapolis.
There's an outside chance that five teams (Seattle, Buffalo, Miami, Baltimore and Oakland) could finish 9-7. In such a scenario, the Seahawks would have an edge in most tiebreakers and advance to the playoffs with Buffalo.
A Kansas City win Sunday would clinch the AFC West for the Chiefs (9-5).
Two trends don't bode well for the Seahawks: Only twice in Seattle history have the Seahawks swept the Chiefs in a season series (the last time it was done was 1990), and in all three second meetings with opponents this season, they've lost.
"It's about adjustments and making adjustments to their adjustments," Seattle receiver Sean Dawkins said. "I don't think any team has played us any differently the second time around. They just played us better. They knew our tendencies and how to get to us."
Holmgren hopes he and his team can get it right this week.
"At some point, we're going to be clicking on all cylinders, and then we're going to be pretty good," Holmgren said. "But we're running out of time now. If it's going to be this season, we better start putting it together."
When the Seahawks beat up on the Chiefs 31-19 in Kansas City last month, the loss left K.C. at 5-5 and seemingly out of the division race, having lost three in a row.
"It's not about revenge," Chiefs linebacker Donnie Edwards said. "It's personal. It's personal to me, and it's personal to a lot of guys on this team."
There is a sentiment among Kansas City players that Holmgren is going to play a big part in righting the Seahawks' ship.
"I don't think Mike Holmgren will let them slip down too far," Chiefs defensive end Eric Hicks said. "He's a good coach. They still have a chance to win the division if they beat us and win their last game. They still have something to play for. We can't have a letdown, thinking we're better than we really are. When that happens, you get beat."
There's no doubt, based on the crazy happenings of this 1999 season, that the Chiefs, despite their momentum, are not taking the Seahawks lightly.
"People always say to me, 'Wouldn't you rather play a team that just won, so they won't be as hungry to get a win?' " Chiefs center Tim Grunhard said. "I agreed with that until last year, when we got into a situation where we couldn't get a win. I'm sure Seattle is feeling that right now.
"They played a hard game (against Denver), but in the back of their minds, they're thinking, 'What do we have to do to win a game?' That was pretty troubling for me last year, and I'm sure some of the guys are thinking that over there.
"But," Grunhard added, "that place (the Kingdome) is going to be loud and rocking and rolling, and the thing we have to do is start fast and try to get some doubt in their mind. It's not going to be an easy thing to do because they have a lot of pride.
"It's amazing what's happened in four weeks."
Indeed it is. Check out some of the numbers associated with the Chiefs' ride to first place:
'Crazy' days in Denver
Defeating the Seahawks last Sunday wasn't as much a pleasant experience for the Broncos as it was agitating. The two-time champs know they can compete with playoff teams despite their 5-9 record.
"To look around the league and think that we're not in the playoff hunt right now, it just makes you sick," Denver's Tyrone Braxton said. "It's not just our division, but look at the entire AFC. You can even look at Jacksonville. They're the team to beat now and we know, even though we didn't play that well, we could have won at their house (in Week 14).
"You think about all the close games we've lost, if we win a couple of those, we're playing for something right now. It's just hard to swallow."
Broncos defensive tackle Trevor Pryce sounded so unimpressed by Seattle, he said, "I couldn't even fathom us losing that game. If we had lost, I would have completely lost my mind."
Despite its record, Denver has allowed only eight more points than it has scored this season.
"I look around at the teams in our conference and I don't think any of them are close to what we were, because none of them have gone through the things we have," Braxton said. "I've got to think a lot of teams around the league are happy we're not in it, because if we'd just won some of those early games and finished around 10-6, people know we know how to play football in January.
"It makes me crazy to think about it."
Pathetic Pats
Speaking of crazy, things are unsettled in New England, where the locals are
standing in line to make Pete Carroll to walk the plank despite having two years at $1 million per season left on his contract.
After the Patriots' humiliating 24-9 loss to the woeful Eagles, a defeat that knocked the Patriots out of playoff contention, owner Robert Kraft and Carroll met, and both emerged clearly having shed tears.
It's an intriguing situation developing in New England, because Kraft has taken a liking to Carroll and to fire him would hurt him for two reasons: Firing someone he likes, but an admission that he hired the wrong man to replace Bill Parcells.
Carroll, who has led the Patriots to the playoffs (and an early exit) in each of the two seasons since replacing Parcells, spoke to his team this week about "re-setting" goals with the postseason out of reach.
"I'll take those who want to go with me," Carroll said. "We need to be winners. We'll play guys that feel the same. This is a new time for us since we've been here, since we've not been in a situation where the playoffs weren't at stake."
The loss at Philadelphia was the low point of the post-Parcells era.
"I couldn't go out (Monday) night," Patriots receiver Shawn Jefferson said. "My wife is a Lakers fan, and we were going to go to the (Lakers-Celtics) game, but I'd be embarrassed to show my face in public after a game like that. I didn't even go out to eat. My wife asked me if I took this all too personally, and I said to her, 'This is how I am, and this is how I respond to losing, especially losing like this.' "
Patriots defensive end Willie McGinest called the Eagles (4-11) "one of the worst teams in the league."
"I'm tired of losing," McGinest said. "I'm tired of losing."
One Eagles' executive told the Boston Globe, "This is the worst any team has played against us in the last two years. I've never seen some of our coaches so confident before the game. They really had a good feeling about this one."
Carroll said his team "squatted" against the Eagles.
"I'm sick about what we did," Carroll said. "I can't imagine we would do what we did. Obviously, y'all saw that. Where that came from ... that's as ugly of a performance as you can imagine. It was a disgrace."
Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post writes a weekly AFC notebook for ESPN.com that appears each Thursday.
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