The inexplicable art of explaining an illogical win

So many times they've had to stand in this same room and explain the inexplicable. Explain the blown coverage. Explain the field-goal attempt that doinked off the upright. Explain the lost fourth quarter that defied all logic.

On the road to two decades of mediocrity, the Seahawks have lost a lifetime of these games. This season they're winning them.

So many times the postgame locker room was so silent you could hear the hissing of the showers. The excuses came in whispers. Faces were blank. The players' answers to questions never seemed to add up.

How could they explain the inexplicable?

Now there is life in the locker room. There is a feeling that something is happening here. Something new. Something else that is just as hard to explain, but a lot more enjoyable.

No coach can quantify rolls like the Seahawks are on. A coach can't summarize in one paragraph why the same franchise that has lost these games for as long as this town can remember suddenly is winning them.

How does anyone explain the 11 false-start penalties on the New York Giants? Every team plays in loud stadiums and even if the Seahawks' home was as loud as Husky Stadium once was, it doesn't explain how a good team made the same mistake 11 times.

How does a coach explain a quality field-goal kicker like Jay Feely gagging not one, not two, but three game-winning field goals, each a little uglier than the one before it.

Every good team gets a break here and there. But in Sunday's 24-21 overtime win against the Giants, the Seahawks got breaks here and here and there and there and all the way to infinity — or at least to the best record in the NFC.

"I do believe this is our year," said Shaun Alexander, who rushed for 110 yards that were as tough as January.

The statistics will say that Seattle didn't deserve to win. So what? The highlights will say the Hawks were lucky. They were. It doesn't matter.

The Hawks are 9-2, undefeated in six home games. And each win is another brick in the wall.

"I've been on some bad teams that were this close to being good teams," said center Robbie Tobeck, holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart. "But the close games you lose. You can say what you want about this game, but we found a way to get the 'W'. That's what it is sometimes. It's grinding it out. It's the NFL."

When you're hot, you're hot. You absorb the inevitable injuries. You escape the seemingly inescapable. You believe in miracles. You make them happen.

"There's no way to really explain this," cornerback Marcus Trufant said. "We just kept fighting and fighting and playing hard and things finally went our way. You've just got to keep playing."

A break here? A break there?

Sure, Feely missed three potential game-winners, but the Seahawks' defense made sure none of them were chip shots.

And sure the offense struggled against the Giants' steely defense, but when quarterback Matt Hasselbeck had to make one final play, he found D.J. Hackett for 38 yards.

And five plays later, just as he did against Dallas, Seahawks kicker Josh Brown confidently hammered his 36-yard game-winner.

"We've been on the losing end of these games a lot of times," said guard Steve Hutchinson, a Seahawk since 2001. "Frankly a lot of the guys who have been on this team for a while are tired of it. Tired of losing games like this."

The Seahawks busted another ghost on Sunday. They now have won at home against Atlanta, Dallas and New York. They've established themselves as the NFC's favorite to go to Detroit in February.

"I don't think we're getting the respect we deserve being 9-2 in the Northwest," said Joe Jurevicius, who had eight catches for 137 yards and two touchdowns. "But that's fine. Let's just continue to play strong football and let the chips fall where they may."

This team doesn't allow one bad down to affect the next down, the way past Seahawk teams did. Mistake doesn't pile on top of mistake.

For instance, Hackett and Hasselbeck miscommunicated on a third-and-five in the Hawks' second overtime possession, then connected on the game-winning drive.

"There is a fine line between winning and losing, and that was obviously true today," Hasselbeck said. "For whatever reason in the past we were never that [winning] team and now, for whatever reason this year, we are that team. Whatever the reason is, I don't know, I don't really care. I just like being that team."

Sometimes winning is inexplicable, as hard to understand as the winds that swirl around the stadium, as confusing as the snap counts were to the Giants' offensive line.

"All I know," Tobeck said, "is it's a lot more fun to explain a win like this. At least you can explain a win with a smile on my face."

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.