The Seattle Seahawks found themselves in a 14-0 hole early in the first quarter against the North Carolina Panthers in what would be their final game of the 2015-16 season. Sound familiar?

Looking back to weeks one and two in the regular season, Seattle was in an 0-2 ditch after losing to the Rams and Packers.

After two quick scores by the Panthers, the Seahawks were able to keep the Panthers out of the box score for the rest of the first quarter.

Much like the first quarter of the Divisional round of the playoffs, Seattle would end up finishing the first quarter of their season with a 2-2 record, after stealing away their second win of the season on a controversial no call on a ball linebacker KJ Wright batted out of the endzone against the Detroit Lions.

Russell Wilson woes continued in the first half as he threw his second pick of the game.

Being the optimist that I am while watching the Seahawks, I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t as bad as the pitiful play he tried to make when he threw the ball behind Marshawn Lynch and right into the hands of Carolina’s Luke Kuechly.

The second quarter of their season was much of the same. Seattle blew two fourth quarter leads against two formidable opponents, Carolina and Cincinnati. However, Seattle bounced back and beat their archrivals San Francisco, who finished 5-11, and beat a 4-12 Dallas Cowboys team.

My optimism thinking struck again, “we are still elite, right?”

The second half of the year was very much like the modern Seahawks team we’ve grown to love, winning five straight then losing another to the St. Louis Rams, which we pushed aside after the thrashing we gave Arizona in the final game of the regular season.

But 24 points wasn’t enough, much like our near heroic comeback against the Panthers.

Seattle missed opportunities late in the game to make a historic comeback.

The one that sticks out in my mind the most was the overthrown pass intended to Doug Baldwin. Or instead of going for it on fourth down in the first half, similar to another playoff loss against the Atlanta Falcons in 2013, taking the points could have changed the outcome of the game.

The divisional game against the Panthers was the Seahawks regular season in a nutshell. Highs and lows throughout. You could almost call it a parody. A cruel imitation of what Seahawks fans endured throughout the season, flashed before their eyes in 60 minutes.