Dear Seahawks: Please Stop Trying to Shoot Down Our Helicopters. Signed, America.

Steph Chambers. Getty Images.

I have to admit, I was weirdly disappointed watching the Bears steamroll the Seahawks last night. Not that I'm a Seattle fan by any stretch. But just as a fan of the game, I always enjoy watching one team dominate with an elite defense week after week. II guess it's the Boomer football fan in me, that appreciates a smothering defense in a league increasingly built to punish the things it used to celebrate. Like physicality, hitting, toughness, athleticism, even controlled violence. You can't tell me it wasn't fun watching last week watching the Seahawks dig a Burmese Tiger Pit that the Chiefs just kept falling into. 

So on a certain level, it was sad watching D'Andre Swift run all over them, Caleb Williams complete seemingly every throw and Rome Odunze average over 20 yards a catch. It proved my theory that there are no truly great teams in the NFL this year. And I was disappointed. 

Until I saw this:

NY Post -  Four US Army helicopters flew over the field prior to the “Monday Night Football” clash between the Seahawks and Bears. Three made it safely out of the stadium before the pyrotechnics went off, but the last chopper narrowly escaped. 

As the fireworks exploded around the final helicopter, gasps were heard among the crowd of 70,000. The helicopter remained in the air and followed the others beyond in the stadium in the Seattle sky.

Multiple angles from various videos were posted on social media of the moment as fans freaked out over the incident that seemingly involved some miscommunication by the stadium’s staff.

Eat shit, Seattle. You deserved every ill that befell you last night. And to never win another game. The Bears ended that war, but you drew First Blood. 

How hard is it to time a pregame flyover? The answer is, not at all hard for America's Best and Brightest sitting in the cockpits at the controls. In New England, ours tend to be The Green Mountain Boys - officially the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing - who come all the way from Burlington. And every time they reach Gillette, it's precisely at the "… and the hooommme …  of the braaavvve" part. At Army-Navy in Foxboro two years ago, there was a squadron of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets flying south, followed by Blackhawks coming north. It was breathtaking. And neither fighting force took any surface-to-air fire. Which made it all the better. 

So while their part of the program is extremely complex and requires enormous reserves of skill, intelligence and training, all the people on the ground need to do is wait until they've cleared the area before unleashing hell. 

In a world where there's always somebody bellyaching that these flyovers are a waste of resources, or pro-war propaganda, or inherently dangerous and need to be stopped, the last thing those of us who love them need is for a remake of Blackhawk Down over downtown Seattle. We don't need to stop them. America just needs a better class of Super Bowl champions. Like we had in the years 2001-2018.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm putting a sign out front on my lawn that says, "In This House, We Support Blackhawks, Not Seahawks." Do better, 12.