Super-Respect

As noted, Isengard.gov only refers to the "eastern media cabal" when commenting the incredible, enduring, irritating disrespect shown to the Seattle Seahawks, sourced in the muddle-headed, reflexive East Coast regionalism of your average sports analyst.

But I detect a note, a certain waft, of this, what you call your respect, as the first regular season game approaches.

Item One: Seahawks are number #1 on ESPN's power rankings.
Item Two: Rasmussen Reports, by a percent, has the Seahawks as the national poll favorite to win the Superbowl. Note however the title of the article.
Item Three: Many reports are almost uniformly enthusiastic.

The schedule is fairly favorable, as well. (Seattle PI's Seahawks page has a, um, number, of articles.)

The depressed reaction to the simple fact that Carolina has to play at Seattle this is evidence that Seattle is now actually feared. Many experts are predicting, at the start of the season, that the Seahawks will win the Superbowl. It is to be recalled that almost no one in the eastern media cabal, near the end of an incredible season last year, had them going to anything but Starbucks for the half-caf no-foam non-fat vanilla latte of lameness.

While we may have lost the Superbowl and everyone outside of the region complained we were whining about the calls (ok, ok, we were a bit), their performance there and their strength now makes the Seahawks enter this year as a major national team, in a way they've never been, as a force to be reckoned with.