The End in Seattle for Mike Holmgren?

With Saturday's 42-20 loss to the Green Bay Packers, Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Holmgren is left with two important questions: "What happened after the Seahawks took a 14-0 lead four minutes into the Divisional Round game against the Packers?" and, maybe more importantly, "What does Holmgren want to do about next season?"

It has been almost 12 years since Holmgren led the Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl and won it. He has been back twice since, but both times ended in disappointed losses to the Broncos in 1997 and to Pittsburgh in 2006. Some question whether he still has the desire inside to continue to lead the Seahawks. Will he return for his tenth season in Seattle as their head coach or will the future Hall-of-Famer call it a career?

One of the first things you have to realize is that Holmgren has nothing to prove to anyone in the NFL. He took the Packers to the Super Bowl and won it and brought them back the next season. Then he went to Seattle and turned around a franchise that was for a long time one of the weakest teams around. Under Holmgren the Seahawks became a power in the NFC West and the NFC as a conference with his brand of the West Coast offense.

While a job as an NFL head coach is highly coveted, I am led to believe that Holmgren is going to return. The hunger to win a Super Bowl is still there and he knows that the Seahawks' window could be closing with the aging of star players on the team like quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and running back Shawn Alexander. He's coaching a team that plays in a weak conference and the time to really make a move is probably within the next couple of years. The NFC West is overall weak and Seattle is still the class of the division compared to their rivals.

Look for Holmgren to make another run at it next season. It could be a last hurrah situation where Holmgren goes into the season knowing this is his last chance, but I believe the 2008 Seahawks can count on Holmgren to return.