Ron Upshaw: If they want support, Seahawks need to give fans something to root for

Even before the Seahawks dramatic overtime loss Sunday, the KIRO Radio’s Ron Upshaw and Don O’Neill noticed a lack of social media enthusiasm from Seattle’s “12s.”

The hosts received a surprisingly limited response to a Facebook question that asked how long a fan must be a “12” before he or she is no longer considered a bandwagon jumper, and commented on seeing fewer than usual Blue Friday posts across the board. While Don was perplexed by the apparent lack of Seahawks enthusiasm, Ron offered an interesting rationale.

“I think the fans of Seattle are very sophisticated, they have an eyeball test of this team and they recognize that it’s not the same team,” he said.

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Ron said cities like Denver, Oakland and Green Bay have fans that give “blind devotion” to their teams, whether they win two or 12 games on the season. For the Seahawks, who were headed for a 3-2 record before blowing a 17-point lead Sunday, Ron said more is needed.

“If you don’t put a good product on the field, or on the baseball diamond or on the basketball court &#8212 back when we had the Supersonics here &#8212 the fans aren’t just going to blindly spend the money and the time … that it takes to go and support you,” he said. “I think if they turn this around that there will be the support there, but I kind of like that. I kind of like the fact that the enthusiasm, in a sense, is connected to the performance of the team.

“So we’re not just going to be lemmings. You’ve got to put a product on the field that we can root for, and that we have hope in, and when you do that, we’re going to be there and we’re going to have a million people to come out for the Super Bowl parade.”

Who knows what the reaction might be next Friday, as the 2-3 Seahawks return home to play the undefeated Carolina Panthers.