'Winning Cures All'
A conversation with Fox 13's Aaron Levine about what the Seahawks trip to the Super Bowl means for Seattle.
If you’ve been watching the Seahawks this season — or if you watch Jeopardy! — you have probably seen Seattle local Aaron Levine. The Fox 13 sports director won three games on the trivia show last fall, closing out his final round with a call to bring back the Sonics. With the Seahawks heading to the Super Bowl next week, The Cholent was lucky to grab a few minutes with the Jewish anchor to talk about the winning season and what it means for Seattle before he heads down to San Francisco to cover the Seahawks against the New England Patriots.
The Cholent: I just want to start by asking: How are you feeling right now? What does this moment mean to you?
Aaron Levine: The last six months have just been incredible for Seattle sports. You go all the way back to August when the Seattle Sounders won the league’s cup against Lionel Messi and Inter Miami in front of a Lumen Field attendance record crowd. More fans were there that day than any other Seahawks game in the stadium’s history. So for them to lift the trophy in August, and then for the Mariners to not only make the playoffs and finally win the division, but then to win the ALDS in dramatic fashion in the bottom of the 15th inning in game five of the ALDS, and then go to seven games in the ALCS against Toronto and be one game away from clinching their very first spot in the World Series in franchise history. And then three months later we’re sitting here with the Seahawks back in the Super Bowl for the first time in 11 years when not many people expected it at the beginning of the season. It makes you wonder whether we are currently in the middle of the golden age of sports in Seattle.
Is there something supernatural going on here?
I would say that the Seahawks would have to win a Super Bowl, and then potentially the Seattle Kraken or Seattle Torrent make the playoffs in hockey. We have teams that are all competitive right now, which is really positive and exciting. And the last step is not only championships, but getting the NBA team back, the Sonics.
Any predictions on that happening?
Well, I mean, commissioner Adam Silver has talked about how there will be some sort of discussion about expansion this year. So it's on the docket, it's just a matter of whether the NBA owners want to approve it going forward.
Well, you put that on your final Jeopardy! screen, so maybe you caught someone’s attention.
I did everything I could given my platform in that arena to try and bring the Sonics back and add that to the whirlwind of the last six months.
It’s not just sports that have had an incredible year. Your winning appearances on Jeopardy! plus now you get to go to the Super Bowl — does it get any more exciting? What’s next for you?
It's hard to grasp what the last year has been like. It's been incredibly surreal and gratifying to have accomplished a long-term goal like that. And the big question is, What is the next big thing? And I'm still pondering that and figuring that one out, but I'm also still kind of enjoying the satisfaction of having accomplished that goal that really ended up taking six to seven years.
You’ll be down in San Francisco covering the Seahawks and the Patriots at the Super Bowl. Is this game about revenge or not?
When fans say revenge, I understand it and there's a part of me that says, yeah, let’s get the Patriots back for what happened 11 years ago. But you look on the field and the coaches are different, the players are different. Nobody that’s on the field experienced that game 11 years ago. So, as I said in a recent commentary, for me it’s less about revenge and more about starting something that they missed out on 11 years ago. They had a chance to win a second straight Super Bowl championship, and that was their opportunity to begin a dynasty in Seattle. The Patriots ruined that shot at a dynasty, that’s where it came to an end. So it was the dynasty that never was.
Now it’s sort of come full circle where the Seahawks are playing that same team, the Patriots, and have a chance potentially to start a dynasty in Seattle because the cards or the stars could potentially line up for that. Given how talented the young core is on this current team, how talented the new head coach Mike McDonald is defensively, and the fact that the Seahawks have the fourth most salary cap space going into this off season, they have money to spend as well.
What are your predictions going into this game?
Despite the fact that underdogs have won the last three straight Super Bowls outright, I think the Seahawks are the better team. I think they're hungrier. I think they're more battle tested. I’m not as familiar with this Patriots team, simply because they didn’t play many common opponents this year, and they didn't cross paths with the Seahawks much at the season at all, and they’re a fairly new team under a brand new head coach in Mike Vrabel. But there's too much unity and respect within the Seahawks locker room, and talent for that matter, for them to lose this game.
How about superstitions? Are you going to wear the same socks you wore at their 2014 Super Bowl win or something like that?
It's funny because, no, I'm not superstitious like that. I hadn't worn a tie on the air in months before the NFC championship game. And I did wear a tie and we won that game. So I could go tie or no tie. I am not worried about that. For the Super Bowl, I did gather a ton of confetti from the celebration on the field after they won the Super Bowl in 2013 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. And for the longest time, every time I opened up my luggage, I'd find a couple of pieces of confetti from that Super Bowl win. It's time to gather more confetti.
What are you hearing from fans?
I would say this: I am so impressed with how quickly this fan base has galvanized around this team in the second half of the season, and it really does prove the saying that winning cures all. The Seahawks have now won nine consecutive games going for 10, which would be one short of their franchise record, which they set back in 2005, which was the first time they reached the Super Bowl. But at the beginning of this season, the Seahawks were picked dead last by Vegas odds-makers to win the NFC West. The Arizona Cardinals had better odds according to Vegas to win the division than the Seahawks did.
I felt like the team was a lot better than people were giving them credit for. I never went so far as to say that this was a Super Bowl contender. I think a lot of fans started to realize that that was a possibility toward the middle and the end of the season. And since then, you've seen this fan base really start to resemble the fan bases that we saw in 2013 and 2014 when the Seahawks made the Super Bowl with the Legion of Boom years. The electricity and the atmosphere and just the feeling inside Lumen Field is back for the first time since at least before the pandemic.
At the end of the day, you’re talking about a team that won more regular season games than any other in team history. They had the highest point differential of any team in franchise history. They have a chance to win a Lombardi trophy on the home field of their biggest rival in the Super Bowl. You put all of that together and this could potentially be the best team in franchise history, and it comes in their 50th anniversary season.
Who are your favorite players to watch?
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is definitely one of my favorites. I really enjoy watching AJ Barner, because he was my preseason pick to be a dark horse in fantasy football league at tight end and he proved me right. And I love watching Ernest Jones as well because he doesn't always get the credit that he deserves. He was not named to the Pro Ball this year, despite leading the team in interceptions and tackles on arguably the best defense in the entire league. The difference he made when the Seahawks were able to acquire him a couple years ago, and then the fact that he took somewhat of a hometown discount to stay with the Seahawks and sign a long-term contract here in Seattle spoke volumes about what kind of a team player he is and how badly he wanted to win a championship.
Tom Brady is now a sports anchor, too. What will you do if you run into him in San Francisco?
I did pass Tom Brady in the press elevator during the divisional round of the playoffs when the game was on Fox. He was in Seattle for both of those games. I didn't say anything to him. I didn’t really have anything to say to him.
I guess taunting is probably not allowed among the press. Aaron, it’s been a pleasure catching up with you before you head to the Super Bowl. Any final thoughts?
I mean, it’s just a dream come true to watch the Seahawks get back to the Super Bowl for the first time in more than a decade. And when you get back there, you definitely appreciate it that much more than the first couple times around.
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