Pete Carroll reflects on Seahawks’ ‘marvelous’ Super Bowl 48 team

When the Seattle Seahawks face the Carolina Panthers this Sunday at Lumen Field, it will be a special day for the franchise.

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The organization will be celebrating the 10-year anniversary of their 2013 Super Bowl championship season, the Seahawks’ first and only title this Sunday at Lumen Field. The team will wear white uniforms and blue pants, which was the combination Seattle wore during Super Bowl 48.

Head coach Pete Carroll, who led the Seahawks to that championship in his fourth season in Seattle, reflected on what made that team special during the weekly Pete Carroll Preview on KIRO Newsradio. And fittingly, Steve Raible, the radio voice of the Seahawks, was again the one interviewing Carroll.

“The team had a marvelous makeup of unique individuals that had all kind of come along and hadn’t quite hit it yet,” Carroll said. “And they were hungry. They were hungry to be part of something special.”

Carroll and general manager John Schneider came to the Seahawks in 2010 and the team won the NFC West that season. After missing the playoffs in 2011, the Hawks clicked in a major way in 2012, going 11-5 and clinching a wild card spot.

Seattle knocked off Washington for the franchise’s first road playoff win since 1983. The next week, the Seahawks lost a heartbreaker to the Atlanta Falcons.

But the Seahawks rebounded in a major way in 2013, going 13-3, winning the NFC West and securing the No. 1 seed, a first-round bye and homefield advantage in the playoffs.

The Hawks knocked off the New Orleans Saints in the Divisional Round, then took down the San Francisco 49ers in a classic NFC Championship Game before blowing out the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl by a final score of 43-8.

When thinking about that 2013 team, Carroll said it goes back to the feeling of brotherhood that team had.

“The connection that was made with those guys was kind of driven by that kind of common chip they had on their shoulders. They wanted to prove something, and that really fueled us,” Carroll said. “We fed to that strength and the aggressiveness of the offensive guys. Marshawn (Lynch) was such a factor in that style of play that we had, and the defense fed off of that as well. The offensive line was a bunch of grinders and guys who would just tear your throat out when you gave them a chance.”

Carroll said the Seahawks offensively weren’t “over the top better than everybody that we played,” but that “collectively,” the Seahawks had “a great team.” That was in large part because of the Legion of Boom defense.

“All of those years, there’s a six-year run in there of defense that’s almost unmatchable. We were right in the heart of it then. And we took full advantage of it and we hit at the right time,” Carroll said.

The Seahawks won Super Bowl 48 and made it back to the Super Bowl the next year, but lost to the New England Patriots.

“If we had won the second one, we might likely have won the third one. I think there would have been something to that,” Carroll said. “Great group. And it was really the heartfelt connection and the brotherhood that they shared that I think made us unique in those times.”

The Pete Carroll Preview airs every Friday at 8:15 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM’s Seattle’s Morning News. Listen to this week’s interview at this link or in the player near the top of this story.

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