The only Seattle Seahawks game that Seattle journalist Michael-Shawn Dugar attended as a fan took place on Oct. 30, 2011. It was an afternoon home game against the Cincinnati Bengals and, in many ways, was forgettable for the Seahawks: They lost 34-12 and dropped to a 2-5 record on the season.
But Dugar, who writes about the Seahawks for The Athletic, says that game is actually one to remember because for the first time that day, Richard Sherman, Brandon Browner, Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor all started together on defense.
“That game is, in some ways, the birth of the Legion of Boom (the Seahawks defensive unit from the 2011-17 seasons) as we know it,” Dugar says.
His new book, “The Franchise: Seattle Seahawks: A Curated History of the Legion of Boom Era” (out Aug. 12 from Triumph Books), collects a number of stories from that era of Seahawks football. The book reads less like a historical narrative and more like a series of thoughtful, detailed essays on individual players and moments. It covers the team’s victory in the 2014 Super Bowl, their defeat after a goal line interception in the 2015 Super Bowl, and many other events throughout the seasons where Seattle had the best defense in the league. “Seattle’s signature style on defense reflected player personality, not scheme,” Dugar writes.
The Legion of Boom mindset mirrors, in Dugar’s mind, that of Seattle. “That’s why they were so beloved here and still are — it’s not just because they won a lot, it’s because their makeup was very similar, I think, to the makeup of the city, in terms of feeling slighted in the larger sports context,” Dugar says. He makes a clear case for remembering this era of Seahawks football as one with collective highs and crushing lows.
The Seahawks started playing in the NFL in 1976, but Dugar didn’t want to write a book about the team’s entire history. “I wanted to keep it short in terms of scope to really give depth to the main characters,” he says.
Those main characters — Sherman, Browner, Thomas, Chancellor and others like former running back Marshawn Lynch and quarterback Russell Wilson — are all the focus of chapters throughout “The Franchise.” Dugar doesn’t go season by season or even play by play; instead, he creates a collage of individual narratives to give depth and emotional context for this era of Seahawks football.
Dugar recounts in detail the origin stories of many Seahawks players: Chancellor found a job at 10 years old to help support his mother; Thomas was known to his family as a “miracle baby” when his mother, Debbie, gave birth to him months after a cervical cancer diagnosis; Sherman grew up with two working parents and exuded confidence to be great from a young age. All three were the stars of the defense, Dugar writes, “all of whom built potential Hall of Fame cases while playing for the Seahawks.”
The personal side of Dugar’s analysis might be the most compelling part of the book — players like Chancellor, Sherman and Lynch took the field with something bigger in mind.
“I think there were a lot of guys trying to prove that they mattered to the world,” Dugar says, “to themselves, to their coaches, to their brothers, to their families, to their hometowns.”
On a radio show in August 2012, Chancellor used the word “boom” to describe his style of play. A fan-submitted name inspired by this, Dugar writes, was eventually chosen as the group’s unofficial moniker. In January 2014, Sherman made history with “the tip,” a broken-up fourth-quarter pass in the NFC Championship Game that put the Seahawks into the Super Bowl. His postgame interview ends with a direct name drop of the era: “Don’t you open your mouth about the best, or I’mma shut it for you real quick. LOB.”
Sherman’s tip, to Dugar, represented something bigger to a city not known for championships or superstars (despite, Dugar says, the Seattle Storm’s four WNBA championships). “If you look at pro men’s sports, it’s not a lot,” he says.
Feeling slighted in the way Sherman did hit on how the Seahawks, and Seattle, saw themselves in the national media conversation: “They don’t see us, they’re biased against us. We’re the little engine. We’re not a New York or L.A. or even Boston or Chicago. The sports media doesn’t care about us in this way,” Dugar says. “Seattle has this complex of ‘We don’t get appreciated enough, and we’re mad as heck about it and can’t take it anymore.’ And Sherm took that to the brink on the biggest stage possible at the time.”
“The Franchise” doesn’t only recount the Legion of Boom’s successes. Dugar approaches one of the era’s defining moments — Wilson’s interception on the goal line in the 2015 Super Bowl — by unpacking, player by player, the fracture that developed within the team.
Lynch had a dream taken away when he wasn’t given the ball, Dugar says. Receiver Doug Baldwin was “befuddled” he didn’t get the call to catch a winning touchdown after owning his matchup with Darrelle Revis earlier in the game. Dugar is fascinated with the “humanity” of that play, and how it functioned as the “last straw” for divisions between Wilson and other members of the team.
Some of the most eye-opening moments for Dugar while writing the book came in the Super Bowl interception chapters. “That interception and all it meant to the people involved, not to mention the fans and coaches and everyone’s legacies … the people who had the opportunity to live out their dreams and prove that they mattered to the sports world and to their families, to their coaches … it was all kind of taken away.”
Dugar reflects on how times have changed since the Legion of Boom was in its prime more than a decade ago. There’s a “time and place to why (the Legion of Boom) were great,” Dugar says. “And it’s got a lot to do with the stigmas of Black men and mental health.”
A lot of players were channeling childhood traumas into football and exhibiting unhealthy behaviors, Dugar says. That era of Seahawks football can’t be replicated in part because this particular group of players drove the team’s on-field success.
“Their personalities and them playing for a purpose and trying to prove that they mattered to the world through football was their avenue,” Dugar says.
AUTHOR EVENT
“The Franchise: Seattle Seahawks: A Curated History of the Legion of Boom Era”
Michael-Shawn Dugar, Triumph Books, 256 pp., $28
Dugar will be at Third Place Books Seward Park at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug 12. 5041 Wilson Ave. S., Seattle; thirdplacebooks.com; 206-474-2200; free, RSVP recommended
Zachary Fletcher: Zachary Fletcher is a journalist, book reviewer and bookseller who lives in Seattle. You can find his work at fletcherzachary.weebly.com.