NFL teams lose to the Seahawks. That’s just what happens. Best team, best fans, ’nuff said.
Inevitably, fans of our defeated opponents get grumpy. Here’s a very sad letter to the editor from a disgruntled San Francisco 49ers fan via The Chronicle:
Unsportsmanlike conduct in Seattle
Was anyone else appalled by the unsportsmanlike conduct of the Seattle Seahawks and their fans, juiced on noise, which surely creates as big an advantage over an opponent as any performance enhancing drug and which, to their shame, NFL officials turn the same blind eye they have to concussions and drugs (“Seattle states case loudly, clearly in rout,” Sports, Sept. 16)?
It would be simple to fix. Seahawks players and managers would ask their fans to cease and desist, and the NFL would implement a new rule: The visiting team may stop the game when fan noise is greater than a specified decibel level, and should this rule be violated in more than three games, no home games will be played at the offending field for the rest of the season, including playoff games. Things would quiet down.
At a time when the world seems sour, sports give us a place of joy, community and hope, and to have it spoiled is a bigger loss than it seems on the surface.
Judy Spelman, Rich Schiller,
Point Reyes Station
