Mathematics and injuries, mistakes and time had caught up with his Seattle Seahawks . Probability had become certainty.

After Sunday's 26-20 loss to the Arizona Cardinals , the torch was passed. The empire fell. The dynasty was destroyed. For the first time since 2003, the Hawks weren't winning the NFC West.

"We had gotten accustomed to [winning] it," said Walter Jones, a Hawks left tackle since 1997.

It was only a matter of time, of course. Since the season-opening kickoff in Buffalo, the Seahawks haven't been good enough, deep enough, healthy enough, to compete, even in a division as weak as the West.

Because of the strange, endless parade of injuries, because of the lack of a consistent pass rush, because it still didn't have a running game and because this franchise that always seemed to make a play when it absolutely needed to no longer could, the season collapsed.

And in Sunday's gathering dusk, a time when so many other Seahawks teams, for so many years, have celebrated, it was the Arizona Cardinals hugging and laughing and toasting each other at Qwest Field.

"They've won the NFC West for the last four years and the road comes through here," said Arizona wide receiver Anquan Boldin. "We had to come here and beat them on their home turf and we were able to do that."

The Cardinals haven't officially won the West, but they vanquished the defending champions and this NFC West title is the closest thing to a sure thing in sports.

Meanwhile, with the Hawks at 2-8, Holmgren reluctantly admitted his team must redefine its goals.

"I think for most of us we are going to go out and play hard no matter what," said quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who returned after missing the past five games because of a bulging disk in his back. "I don't think we have thought past this game, in terms of what that would mean.

"But we are not idiots. We can do the math. Either way, I know I am not going to change the way I come to work and what I do. We all feel bad. I think each of us has taken it hard. ... I think we all just feel like we are letting people down. That is just a bad feeling. I don't know what else to say."

They've owned the NFC West the way John Lee Hooker owned the blues, the way Tom Hanks once owned the Oscar, the way Derek Jeter owns New York.

The West was their fiefdom. They dominated it. They expected to win it. They practically had established squatter's rights in it. In the league where parity rules, the Seahawks broke the rules.

"It's been a good run," Holmgren said. "We are very proud of that fact. Those banners are nice in the facility. But this year has been an unusual year. We came in thinking that absolutely we were going to be competitive enough to go for it again. But we just haven't played well enough. We haven't."

Everything changed this season. Despite the continued, unrelenting passion of the home crowd, winning at Qwest Field no longer was a given. Injuries trumped decibels as the Hawks lost to San Francisco, Green Bay, Philadelphia and Arizona at home.

And the fourth quarters that they once owned now belong to their opponents.

Twice in Sunday's last five minutes, the offense came onto the field with a chance to take the lead. Once it went three-and-out, then just before the two-minute warning, Hasselbeck flattened out a deep ball to Deion Branch that was intercepted by rookie Dominique Rogers-Cromartie.

It was another uncharacteristic finish in an uncharacteristic season.

"I thought we were going to win the ballgame," wide receiver Bobby Engram said. "But at the end of the game when we needed to make plays, we didn't. Normally we close those games out, but it's been that type of year."

The question that lingers over Qwest, over the rest of this season and over the future, is whether this season was a freak or the slamming shut of the window of opportunity.

"There is no question in my mind that the Seattle Seahawks will be competitive again in the battle for the same goals next year," Holmgren said. "I don't believe they will have to go through the injury situation that we've had to go through. I don't think that can happen two years in a row."

Now they have six games left before Holmgren leaves the sidelines. Six games to salvage something out of this savaged season.

"It's tough, and to me it's a blip, a one-year event. This organization is built around success," Engram said. "But we're just going to stay together, man, and just keep battling. I think Coach deserves at least that."

Holmgren called this season "Groundhog Day." The mistakes of one week are repeated the next. The injuries that haunted the preseason still stalk the Hawks into late November.

And now the real estate they've valued for years, the NFC West, belongs to someone else.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists