Questions abound if Seahawks are officially irrelevant without Pete Carroll

To be fair, the question is fairly immeasurable. Does the national media care even less about the Seattle Seahawks now that Pete Carroll is no longer involved? Some 12s on Reddit are certainly asking if that is the case.

Carroll was an effervescent character on and off the field and he also won a lot of games over 14 seasons with Seattle. That is going to draw attention. Carroll's teams were also helped by having a number of players who were excellent at their jobs and quite outspoken as well. Did the national media notice Seattle more in the mid-2010s because of Carroll or players such as Richard Sherman?

Or possibly the media just followed teams that won at a high level. The argument could be made that the national press cares more about the Detroit Lions now than they did when the Lions were fairly lousy a decade ago. This is just the natural state of the media. A news site must follow those who win, those who used to win but are now falling apart, and certain players who are noteworthy on their own.

Do the Seattle Seahawks matter nationally without Pete Carroll?

The truth is that in the last few years when Seattle became the epitome of mediocre - back-to-back 9-8 seasons will do that - there was less focus on the team. The Seahawks are already at a disadvantage for being way off in the Pacific Northwest and far away from New York and Los Angeles. Seattle is an amazing city, of course, but that feels more like "ours" not the nation as a whole. The same cannot be said of New York City, for instance.

Discussions about whether the Seahawks get enough national media love are not new. In 2012, before the world would learn that Russell Wilson was going to be a really good quarterback and the defense was going to arguably be the best ever, Bleacher Report ran an article asking the same question that Reddit users are asking now: Why doesn't Seattle get more attention?

The likely fact is that Seattle got really popular during the 2010s not because of Pete Carroll but because Seattle went to back-to-back Super Bowls and then about how the second Super Bowl ended. Once the team did not win as much and players such as Sherman and Marshawn Lynch began leaving, there was less reason for the national media to care about the team.

Let's hope in 10 years we don't have to worry about the national media not paying enough attention to head coach Mike Macdonald's Seattle teams. Winning will cure most ills. In fact, in 14 years, we might need to re-write the headline of this article as "Questions abound if Seahawks are officially irrelevant without Mike Macdonald".

More Seahawks coverage: