I am not a sports columnist. I bow humbly to the local writers in our community who are.

My appreciation for the game of football came to me very late in life. My memories of growing up include having one of the four or five pre-cable channels of the TV that were available in our house, being taken up by football games on the weekends for nearly six months of the year.

As a teenage girl at the time, sports were not what I preferred to watch. My angst with the game of football had begun.

That all changed when my own child started playing pee wee football.

Having the game of football broken down to its most basic level opened a very important door of understanding for the game, the strategy and the skills needed to excel.

Sure, at the 6 to 11-year-old level, it is mostly a running game for obvious reasons and the runs occur at less than half the speed of later on. But this makes following the plays both easy and fun.

The more I watched the game at the local practice field, the more I found myself seeking out and watching televised games at home much to the delight of the males in my life.

I am pushing my submission deadline for this column to the very limit this week.

I knew I would want to view and then write about what turned out to be one of the very best Monday Night Football games played in the Puget Sound area.

The precision and execution of this game on the part of the Seahawks was incredible to watch.

In the past, there have been times where Seattle has had a really good offense and times where it has had a really good defense. This is the first season in a long, long time where they have consistently had both for an entire season.

The football franchise market in Seattle has never really been taken seriously.

Most of the success the Seahawks have experienced in the past has been written off or dismissed at the national level as an interesting anomaly where mistakes made on the part of opponents was credited for any success, first and foremost, well before any excellence was attributed to Seattle players.

To overturn a call made on the field by the officials, a considerable amount of evidence to the contrary on the replay needs to occur before the reverse can happen.

Well, this week’s Monday night game is absolute evidence that it is well on its way towards turning over the national bias against the Seattle sports market and the perception of the Seahawks as anything other than a serious championship caliber team.

It is looking to be an exciting ride through the rest of the NFL season.

The attention and excitement on the Seahawks is well deserved for a region that has worked very hard to support its franchise teams in the good times and through the even longer stretches of bad times.

The 12th man is feeling extremely vindicated this week. For the rest of the NFL nation, welcome to the Russell Wilson house of boom.