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For Dr. D, this is a true Time Warp game.  The historic matchups I'd have most liked to have seen:

The phrase "Battle for the Ages" gets tossed around a lot.  But, on paper anyway, this Super Bowl coming up is one of the great sports matchups I've seen in 40 years.

....

Carroll was asked for his own assessment of the Seahawks' place in history:

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(on if he agrees with what people are saying about his defense being as good as the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s)

"I don't know that. Those kind of comparisons are for people in the media to do. It's not for us because it doesn't matter and we don't really care about it. It's a flattering to be considered in that conversation is really all it is.

To gauge that, I can't. Our players, anybody that does that, we really don't know. It's just talk, which is great for you guys. For us, it doesn't figure in."

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Which is exactly what Bill James, speaking as a Red Sox VP, said when he was asked "Who is the #1 pitching prospect in AAA?"  He goes, "I don't know and don't care.*  You can't trade for him anyway."

Pete Carroll seems to really not care about whether the Seahawks become the #6 team in history, vs the #1 team in history.  He's focused on winning the next game.  The benefits that accrue?, he won't have to worry about.

....

My thought?  Two of them:  First, the Seahawks are already a historical archetype.  The ones that come to mind:

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We don't use the term "thug" racially.  Al Capone was a thug.  Mafia hit men are thugs.  A "thug" is a criminal* who takes what he wants by force, as opposed to taking it by thievery or by strategy.

We're talking about the "Beast Mode" personality that is physically superior and attitudinally meaner.  (Carroll would say "tougher," and that's fine by me; the Seahawks don't stomp ankles out there, like the old Raiders did.)  

It's quite a feat to stockpile an NFL roster that is physically superior to other rosters in the NFL, but that's what they've done.

• Trade for Derelle Revis and the Seahawks have a 4x, All-NFL secondary
• Wagner and Wright and Irvin are freakish sideline-to-sideline, and DOWN the sideline, LB's
• The defensive line, not epic, is worthy of the back seven
• Lynch has become an NFL legend
• The running QB raises the offense, not epic, to championship worthiness

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Second thought:  in chess, you compare world champions ... how?

(1) how much they dominated their peers.

(2) And you have to take into account that the gap in dominance shrinks over time.

In 1920, the gold medal heat of the men's 100 meters had 1-2-3 finish times of 10.8, 11.0, 11.2.  In 2012, the 1-2-3 times were 9.63, 9.75, 9.79, 9.80.  It just isn't possible for Usain Bolt to be .4 seconds faster than the #3 runner in the world, and yet Bolt might be the greatest 100 meters runner ever, the most impressively dominant.

.....

Bobby Fischer's gap was unthinkable in the modern era of hair-fine differences in chess players.  Jose Capablanca's gap in the 1920's was comical, era-adjusted; that chess was quite modern, but Capa had easily the distance between an AL champion and a AAA baseball team.  Paul Morphy's gap, in the 1850's, was revolutionary.

Morphy was the first "grandmaster" and he was playing against the equivalent of local Seattle champions.  Morphy could give material odds to the #2 player in the world - take a Pawn off the board and still win.  (The best computers can now do that against the human champion.)  You would compare Felix Hernandez pitching against the best high school hitters.  

Morphy's skill came with no precedent, nothing for him to build off or learn from; it's still wondered how he did it.  It's almost a paranormal question, like an ancient Egyptian doctor who could perform an eye transplant, or something. 

Oddly, the three "distortion" champions all came from the Americas, which is not a chess hotbed.

There is some theory that the "cosmopolitan" bed of our gene pool, in the Americas, leads to more "outlier" geniuses.  This may contribute to America's dominance of science and technology.  Interesting life thought. 

......

It probably isn't possible to compare the 2014 Seahawks to the 1975 Steelers.  But Dr. D was there for both of them, and he'd say those two teams were probably the most feared NFL teams he has seen.  Those two teams probably inspired more despair, more "let's get this game over with" feelings than any other NFL teams did.

Belichick and Brady are also tremendously scary, when it comes to their having 2 weeks to prepare your execution.  And yet:  give the Legion two weeks to figure out Peyton Manning, and how did that go?  The RW3 Seahawks are 9-0 against Super Bowl QB's, right?

The battle will be legendary,

Jeff