They're the Big Two in Detroit

The Seattle Seahawks, whose future once looked as foreboding as the slate-gray skies, reached their first Super Bowl with a 34-14 throttling of Carolina in Sunday's NFC championship game.

Long after the game ended, Qwest Field was still filled to the brim with roaring fans. As player after player hoisted the championship trophy overhead, giant cannons blasted plumes of blue, green and silver confetti into the night air. An enormous 12th-man flag -- a tribute to those screaming thousands -- snapped in the wind.

For left tackle Walter Jones, who was around for Seattle's first-round losses in the 1999, 2003 and 2004 seasons, the victory marked the start of one party

"Now that we've won this game, I don't have to plan a Super Bowl party," said Jones, whose team will play Pittsburgh on Feb. 5 in Detroit. "I've had a million of those where people come over to my house and watch the Super Bowl. Now, if they have a Super Bowl party, they're going to be watching us. And, man, that's a great feeling."

The moment was especially gratifying for those Seahawks who have been around long enough to know the club's bumpy history. Coming into this season, there was speculation Coach Mike Holmgren was dangling by a thread, and that soon-to-be-free-agent running back Shaun Alexander was utterly replaceable.

Now, Alexander is the league's most valuable player -- he rushed for 132 yards and two touchdowns against the Panthers -- and Holmgren is back in the Super Bowl for the first time since taking the Green Bay Packers there in the 1996 and '97 seasons.

"The attitude in the locker room was a lot healthier this year," Holmgren said. "They seemed to be rooting for one another. They're not a very selfish group, honestly, and for a coach

All the talk last week concerned the health of Alexander's head. He suffered a concussion early in a divisional victory over Washington and was sidelined for most of that game. It wasn't until late last week that the fog completely cleared.

In describing the minutes after the concussion, he said: "I went from not knowing if I'm Batman or Robin, to feeling pretty good at the end of the game, to every day getting better in my head. I told everybody, 'You know, from the neck down I feel great. But from the head up, we'll have to wait and see.' "