Sing It From the Top of Mount Rainier: The Seahawks Are Playoff Winners

The lovable, long-suffering lout in the stands.

And the 34-year-old vet who almost gave up the game six years ago after two ankle surgeries, sealing the win as the masses went mad in the cold.

When you wait 22 years in the rain for a postseason win, the losses that bind pile up. Until they sting, and then hurt, and you feel like you're almost supposed to lose the important ones.

"The great thing in sports is when there's a bond between fans and players and everybody is waiting for victory," Allen said. "And then it's over, and it's a great thing."

Said Strong: "The history of bad things happening, the history of failing, this is a different football team. This is a new era and we're going in a different direction."

Standing beside him in the locker room on Saturday was Allen, once a 14-year-old sports fan at Lakewood High along with his curious 12-year-old friend, Bill Gates. While they went on to change the world, Allen's hometown team changed little. When it came to the postseason, Seattle lost. And lost, losing every postseason game they played since 1984.

"I told them they don't have to hear about 1984 anymore," Allen said.

At the time, Sandretzky was an 18-year-old high school football player, years from living out his NFL dreams vicariously through Cortez Kennedy, Kenny Easley and Steve Largent. Today, the big lug is so well known, his action figure is sold all over town. What fan has his own action figure?

Maybe it was apropos that a sense of Seattle dreariness clouded everything. Gray, bleak and wet from the opening kickoff, it was a game that could have been played on a London pitch or in a Dublin alley. There was something inherently depressing about this environment, which Mark Brunell and his teammates were never able to completely shake off.

The whole first-half stalemate seemed what the weather called for, a sense of blase, of nothingness. Joe Gibbs's players never upped their dosage until it was too late; they were never able to kick their malaise. And as it continued to drizzle long after the clock ran out on Washington's season, the Seahawks celebrated their playoff victory as much as their triumph over three decades of postseason futility.

Most amazing: They won a nasty, physical game after their best player, MVP Shaun Alexander, was literally knocked out. They won after giving up a late touchdown and a fumble that seemed to ensure their demise. They were about to lose a two-touchdown, fourth-quarter lead and melt down against a team with so much more playoff history on its side.

What a reversal of fortune, no? The soft, West Coast team stood up and fought back and finally advanced.

The rain was coming down, the 27th straight day. Six more and they've got the record here. Allen was richer, in ways $21 billion could not make him. Strong was looking as manly as a fullback can, flexing his biceps by his locker cubicle. Sandretzky? He was content.

"Doesn't matter how much bad happens to you," Big Lo said. "You get a day like this, it totally outweighs all the bad days you ever had."