The Seattle Seahawks will not win the Super Bowl this year. Sunday's 31-24 loss at the hands of the Carolina Panthers means their season is over prematurely. Thus ends a weird season, and Sunday's loss was in many ways a fitting finish. What team goes down 31 points only to score 24 unanswered without even forcing a turnover? This weird, weird Seattle Seahawks team. God, they were just so weird, all year long. What a bunch of weirdos.

And, let's be real. As season-ending losses go, this one was relatively painless. The absurd initial deficit broke the tension of the morning, and the ensuing comeback eased any sense of humiliation. Last year? That was some shit. 2012? Also some shit. This? I don't know. The 2015 Seahawks team is one of the best iterations in franchise history, and yet dangled precariously over the abyss time and time again due to a makeshift offensive line and a pathological inability to defend tight ends. In the end, they just couldn't hurt me like other versions of this team could. I'm left feeling equal parts sad and optimistic about the future. Optimistsad, if you will.

Let's look at how we got here:

The 31-point deficit that the Seahawks fell into against the Panthers was, from my vantage, two separate and distinct complete meltdowns.

The first meltdown, during which the Panthers got a monster run, recovered their own fumble for a big gain, punched in the touchdown, and then immediately returned a Russell Wilson pass for a touchdown, was a bunch of weird nonsense. Not that the Panthers don't get credit for playing well during those four minutes, they do. But those 14 points weren't about how the Seahawks and Panthers match up. They were about weird bounces and flukey events, missed tackles and wretched decisions.

The next 17 unanswered points, which came on methodical drives that exploited soft spots underneath in the Seattle pass defense, were the sort of points the Panthers were going to put up on Seattle. Cam Newton and co. relied on a multifaceted run game to bolster an aerial attack that hit the Seahawks underneath the defense. The highlight play (and functional game-winner) was an amazing catch by tight end Greg Olsen. Meanwhile on defense, the Panthers held the Seahawks by dominating the line up front, creating havoc and turnovers through pressure. This was the version of the game the Seahawks had every right to lose.

Then the Seahawks answered by playing their best game. The oddly porous rush defense stopped being porous. Newton was still able to make some throws underneath, but the lid was put back on the Panthers' passing game. And Russell Wilson started balling out, finally getting enough time to exploit Carolina's dinged-up secondary. Jermaine Kearse, Doug Baldwin, and Tyler Lockett all made great plays as Seattle stormed back. They also all left just enough plays on the field to make a 31-point comeback, which would have qualified as one of the largest in NFL history, just one bridge too far.

The sequencing of this game was the weirdest aspect. The Seahawks outgained the Panthers, but lost the turnover battle. The Panthers executed better on third down, but the Seahawks managed some big special teams plays. That reads like the blueprint for a one-possession Seahawks loss, which is what happened. It just wasn't a blueprint sort of game.

Which is frankly the only thing that makes this game tough to swallow. There were so many dumb moments early on, any one of which could have gone the other way, giving the Seahawks a chance to win late. This was a Seattle team that was good enough to beat this Carolina team on another day. But Sunday wasn't some other day. It was Sunday. And the Seahawks lost on that Sunday. Goddamn it.

But also... This game was cool. These are the razor-thin margins when you're hanging in the stratosphere of the NFL. To have your team get put to the sword by other great teams and fight back anyway? That's why we watch this game.

The tensest moments I've ever felt watching the Seahawks came in the 2013 regular season, against very bad teams. That 2013 team, one of the all-time great football teams, dug itself into huge holes against the Texans and the Bucs, who were both awful that year, and just barely made its way out of them. Russell Wilson made a fourth-down run in that Texans game that still gives me goosebumps. But at the time, I was sitting there, watching these games, knowing the Seahawks had to win these games. They had to. And I was right. If Seattle had lost either of those games they would not have had home-field advantage against San Francisco in the NFC Title Game they won by Richard Sherman's fingertip en route to the Super Bowl.

The tension was born of being great and knowing that there was another team out there great enough to snuff out our hopes if we gave them a chance. That year we prevailed over the 49ers. This year the Panthers got us. Both times, those games were pretty goddamn awesome.

Also, let's be real. This team wasn't the 2013 team. They left too much meat on the bone of the season over and over again. And that's a bummer, because certain aspects of this squad were spectacular. Start with Wilson, who backed up his big contract by playing like the perennial top quarterback who will keep the Seahawks in Super Bowl contention for maybe the next decade. The defensive line, while thin, propelled the team to the best rush defense in team history. Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas arguably took baby steps backward this year, but they were still two of the ten best defensive players in football. Doug Baldwin became a truly great receiver, and Tyler Lockett showed himself to be poised to make a similar jump as soon as next year. Thomas Rawls! K.J. Wright! There was a lot of good stuff this year.

And the good news is that the team is poised to be great again next year. Yes, Marshawn Lynch will be gone. So will some other guys. But the team has money and young talent. After two meh drafts, this year produced a number of keepers, including Rawls, Lockett, Frank Clark, and Mark Glowinski. The Seahawks will have a little bit of walking around money this offseason, that they can either use it to re-sign some guys like Bruce Irvin and Jermaine Kearse, or go out into the free agent market and restock. They also have the draft picks they need to beef up their squad on both lines.

The takeaway here is that the Seahawks Super Bowl window isn't closing anytime soon. If there was any risk at halftime of this game being too demoralizing for the team to put behind them, well, the 24-point comeback sure helped. If there was any risk of the talent cupboard being too bare, well, they just put together the team's best rookie class since Wilson and Wagner came aboard. If there was a risk of Pete Carroll slowing down, well, that's crazy and not a risk at all. If there was a risk of Future dropping a mixtape on game day... Well, that already happened, and is profoundly unlikely to happen again.

You know what might just happen again next year though? A Seahawks Super Bowl.