Seahawks are Seattle misfits - luckily for us

Seattle settles.

That's the way it's always been in this city.

The high-profile free agents don't come here. Don't even think about coming here.

Since the dawn of free agency, Seattle has been Siberia. Too dark, too wet, too remote.

Seattle teams are too cheap. Or too poor.

The city, tucked into the far left-hand corner of the country, is too removed from the glitter. Too unfamiliar with the sun. This city is supposed to be a marketing executive's nightmare.

Seattle settles for leftovers.

It's the Oliver Twist of sports towns.

"It just seems like we've never gotten the marquee players," said Seahawks wide receiver and lifelong Seattle fan Nate Burleson.

Historically, it's never been in the market for Steve Nash or Gilbert Arenas, Alonzo Mourning or Tracy McGrady or Grant Hill.

The Mariners never have a shot at Josh Beckett or Curt Schilling, Manny Ramirez or Johnny Damon.

Settling is part of Seattle's sports DNA.

"I never really looked at the business side of it," Burleson said. "I just knew that, for some reason, we didn't seem to have a strong sports tradition around here. But I think all of that's changing now."

The Sonics' former regime was defined by its free-agent impotence. Jim McIlvaine? Calvin Booth?

The Mariners always have teased us, making us believe they're truly in the hunt for free-agent pitchers like Barry Zito and Hiroki Kuroda, then finally signing the likes of Jeff Weaver one year and Carlos Silva another.

But the Seahawks, these Seahawks are unique. Different from every other team in Seattle sports history.

This franchise has overcome meteorology, geography and plain-old professional sports economics.

In the past two seasons, it has spent money on Burleson, defensive end Patrick Kerney, linebacker Julian Peterson and safeties Deon Grant and Brian Russell.

The Seahawks haven't settled. Kerney and Peterson are going to the Pro Bowl. The team has won its fourth straight NFC West title. In this town it is an athletic anomaly.

Finally, this is the one Seattle franchise that has gone after the free agents that are the envy of New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas and Washington, D.C.

"You have to have an owner who believes in what you're doing," general manager Tim Ruskell said in the Seahawks' locker room after they beat up the Baltimore Ravens 27-6 on Sunday. "He [Paul Allen] has been very supportive. When I came in, in '05, I said, 'I really think we have to attack the defensive side of the ball.'

"We had an inordinate amount of holes, sometimes even vacuums, places that had nothing, like inside linebacker, and he [Allen] told me, 'Go get it. I want a championship. I want to be a winner. A longtime winner.' "

Yesterday, in the kind of wet and windy weather conditions that send free agents far away from Seattle, the Seahawks won their 10th game of the season. It is only the fifth time in the franchise's 32 seasons the Hawks have won at least 10.

Kerney, who came to Seattle from Atlanta, forced a Mike Anderson fumble in the second quarter that Leroy Hill recovered and returned 20 yards for a score. He sacked Ravens rookie quarterback Troy Smith, and Julian Peterson recovered another ball, snuffing a late first-half Ravens' drive.

"This team's recent history was a big draw for me," Kerney said. "Every year in Atlanta, I expected to win the Super Bowl, and there are certain teams you target in that quest and the past four years it's been Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle. So when the chance came to jump on one of those teams, it was an easy sell."

For Kerney, Peterson, Grant and Brian Russell, Seattle wasn't too cheap, too dark, too wet, too remote.

"I like the cold. I don't mind the rain. There's a certain hardness to it," Kerney said. "I think it's part of what visiting teams feel and don't like about Seattle."

Paul Allen never will be accused of being cheap, but even he learned in Portland, with the Trail Blazers of the NBA, that money can buy you chumps as well as champs.

And the NFL is full of free-agent follies — Nate Clements, Adam Archuleta, Jeremiah Trotter, Jevon Kearse, Darren Howard, to name a few.

The Seahawks have spent Allen's money wisely.

"You can't just bring in talent. You have to ask, 'Who are you bringing in here and are they going to fit with these guys?' " Ruskell said. "Are they going to come in here and think it's all about them, or is it going to be about us?

"I credit our personnel guys. Our guys are detectives. We beat them over the head with, 'Who are you bringing in here?' Not 'what?' That's always worked and we'll always be that way."

A lot of money, spent wisely. Imagine that. And in Seattle, of all places.

"The trust factor with our owner is there," Ruskell said. "That's really key."

The Seahawks haven't teased us with big names and settled for something smaller. They haven't watched other franchises in other cities sign high-profile free agents and shrugged, "no mas."

It isn't all about turning a profit with the Seahawks. It isn't all about the bottom line.

That is so not Seattle.

And so much the way it should be.

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