Detroit – The custom jet cut through desolate skies Sunday afternoon, breaking clouds from Idaho to Minnesota and into Michigan, comfortably carrying a faceless group on its way to the brightest lights of sports.
The passengers sat in oversized seats, with plenty of legroom to rest for the biggest week of their lives and enough elbowroom to eat like the kings of the NFL they are close to becoming.
The passengers capped their living-room-in-the-air feel by watching the movie “Coming to America.”
Welcome to Super Bowl XL, Seattle Seahawks.
When the jet owned by billionaire team owner Paul Allen – the richest of the NFL’s rich – touched down on a gray Michigan afternoon, the NFC champion Seahawks officially had arrived.
Overshadowed since starting as an expansion team in 1976, Sunday was the biggest day in the 30 years of a Seattle franchise that lives among Starbucks, umbrellas and faded Pearl Jam T-shirts.
The Seahawks really are worthy.
“We play pretty good football up there in the Pacific Northwest,” said Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander, the MVP of the NFL this season.
Even though the Seattle has arrived – the AFC champion Pittsburgh Steelers are scheduled to fly to Detroit today – it still is hard for some to believe the Seahawks have advanced to the NFL’s biggest game.
Seattle, which went 13-3 in the regular season and then won two playoff game by a total of 30 points, isn’t the story.
The only reason Detroit had its eyes on the Seahawks on Sunday was because they made it to the Super Bowl city first. The Steelers, the first team since the 1985 New England Patriots to win three road playoff games on the way to the Super Bowl, are the story.
The Steelers have the history. The Steelers have the bigger names. The Steelers are four- point favorites to win Sunday and become five-time Super Bowl champions.
The Seahawks may have been the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs, and the Steelers, who advanced to Detroit by beating the Broncos 34-17 in Denver on Jan. 22, may have been the sixth seed in the AFC. But it’s the Steelers’ show this week.
Before the Seahawks flew to Detroit, they had a pep rally in downtown Seattle. Coach Mike Holmgren, who guided the Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl twice in the 1990s, beating New England in Super Bowl XXXI and losing to the Broncos the following season, talked about respect. He wants his team to earn nationwide respect on the field against the Steelers.
“Then we’ll see what happens,” Holmgren said.
Because he already has won a Super Bowl as a head coach, Holmgren knows just getting to Detroit isn’t good enough. This is his seventh season with Seattle, and the team slowly has risen to this point.
A slow rise is what the Seattle franchise is all about. Until this month, the Seahawks hadn’t won a playoff game in 21 years, the longest drought in the NFL.
The franchise was known more for playing at the Kingdome and for brash linebacker Brian Bosworth than for Alexander, underrated quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who born in Boulder in 1975 while his father, Don, was a junior tight end playing for the Colorado Buffaloes, and this season’s strong defense.
Now it’s the Seahawks’ chance to shine.
“We have to show the country who we are,” said fullback Mack Strong, who has been with the Seahawks for 13 years. “We came from nothing. It’s been a long ride.”
Staff writer Bill Williamson can be reached at 303-820-5450 or bwilliamson@denverpost.com.
