THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Christmas came early for the Northwest sports fan this year, don’t you think?

Between the surging Seattle Seahawks and the re-signing of Hisashi Iwakuma — when it seemed as though he was long gone to the Los Angeles Dodgers — there’s plenty of reasons to be happy right now.

BRINGING BACK Iwakuma was one of the big offseason goals that Seattle Mariner general manager Jerry Dipoto had on his list when the season ended without a trip to the postseason.

Then as the days passed, nothing was done.

Trades were made, some good, some bad, some that left you wondering just what direction this team was heading for the future.

Finally after weeks in limbo, Iwakuma finally signed his deal with the Dodgers, or so fans thought.

Last Tuesday, it was discovered that Iwakuma had failed a physical with the team, and was quickly snatched up by the Mariners once again.

In recent years, Iwakuma has had trouble remaining healthy, but has shown all kinds of promise, including a perfect game last season.

With him, the pitching rotation seems to be pretty good if Wade Miley and Nathan Karns work out like Dipoto thinks they can.

IT WAS only a matter of time before the Seahawks were going to turn things around, or at least that’s the way it seemed.

Defensively, the inability of the team to close out games is a big reason why if they want to make it to a third straight NFC championship game, let alone the Super Bowl, they’ll have to do it on the road.

Forget the holdout of Kam Chancellor, injuries to Marshawn Lynch, Jimmy Graham and Thomas Rawls and issues in the first 10 games of the season.

Right now, they’re closing games, finding guys off the street to run the ball and closing out games offensively instead of defensively.

If anything, those close losses at Green Bay and Cincinnati, as well as home losses to Arizona and Cincinnati, should only give the team more confidence moving forward this season. Even when the team was playing at its worst, they were just about good enough to get wins — on the road — against two of those three.

The lone home loss in that span was against Carolina, who nobody has beaten, when the Seahawks had a nine-point lead with 10 minutes remaining. Arizona, on that night, was a better team, but with a season-ending injury to its best defensive player (Tyrann Mathieu), we’ll see shortly just how good the Cardinals can be without him.

Those losses were also long before Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and wide receiver Doug Baldwin began playing at arena football levels as far as scoring touchdowns.

SURE, THINGS didn’t look quite so bright a few months ago, and who knows, maybe neither still can quite live up to these expectations.

Even the Washington State football team, which stumbled in its home opener against Portland State, found a way to a bowl game this year. The only downside is having to wait until Saturday to see how they’ll do against Miami.

But, for the first time in a while, things seem to be headed for a lot more joy than anger.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.