OPINION: I just can’t love the Seahawks anymore

Elliott Llera, Online Editor

It’s a sentiment that has been brewing inside of me for a while. It has nothing to do with recent on field results; I felt this way before the 0-2 start, so don’t just peg me as another person “falling off of the bandwagon”.

This iteration of the Seattle Seahawks embodies everything wrong with professional athletes.

Ungrateful, selfish, and insincere. These qualities have manifested themselves through 3 of the teams’ most prominent leaders; 2014 captain Kam Chancellor, Head Coach Pete Carroll, and Quarterback Russell Wilson.

Nobody doubts that the Seahawks fan base has completely bought in to this franchise. The 12th man has turned CenturyLink field is a fortress that no opposition team can ever feel comfortable in. Seahawks players vocalize their gratitude towards their fans all of the time on social media, but how do they express it through their actions…?

Enter Kam Chancellor. He let his city and teammates down by holding out of a contract that he signed himself into. The 12th man must be outraged right? Wrong. He received a standing ovation in his first game back in Seattle.

How has this childish behavior become totally acceptable in today’s world of entitled professional athletes? What kind of “captain” abandons their teammates like that? The median income for a household in Washington State–the same households devoting time, money, and passion into Chancellor’s team– is $57,000.

Chancellor demanding “fair compensation” because he thinks he deserves more than $5 million?

Ungrateful.

It’s impossible to acknowledge Pete Carroll’s current success without seriously considering his past.

As head coach of the USC Trojans, Carroll led a bunch of young men through the arduous journey that is college while winning a ton of football games. He also violated a ton of NCAA rules and got his team banned from bowl games for 2 seasons, losing 30 football scholarships in the process.

As soon as word got out that the NCAA would be punishing USC, Carroll jumped ship and accepted a multi million dollar job as head coach of the Seahawks.

The players on his old football team were left without a coach or any chance of competing in the final years of their collegiate careers.

Selfish.

Russell Wilson tells everyone that he’s a team player who’s only concerned about winning, but he renegotiated his contract to make himself the 2nd highest paid player in football.

That enormous contract will inevitably cripple the very team that won Wilson his first Super Bowl. Why not lead by example and play for less?

The bible that Wilson incessantly quotes on Twitter says “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Why not practice what you preach?

Insincere.

I think I’m starting to understand why everyone outside of Pacific Northwest hates this football team.