Bobby Wagner on Seahawks vs Rams this time compared to December’s 42-7: “I’m not hurt”

What a difference a healthy hamstring makes.

At least that’s what Bobby Wagner is counting on Sunday.

The All-Pro middle linebacker was on the field but otherwise out of sorts and ineffective the last time the Rams played his Seahawks. A strained hamstring Wagner had been feeling for weeks pulled hard the previous week at Jacksonville before Los Angeles came to Seattle on Dec. 17. Wagner played. Fellow All-Pro teammate Earl Thomas said he shouldn’t have.

Todd Gurley romped for 144 yards and three touchdowns. In the first half. Wagner could barely run, and the Seahawks could barely breathe. They got stomped 34-0 in the first half and lost 42-7, the worst loss of the Pete Carroll era for Seattle. A new king of the NFC West stole the Seahawks’ crown that day.

And the Rams are still rampaging. They are 4-0 with the top-ranked offense in football. They are the best in first downs and in passing average. They are second only to Kansas City in scoring. Another L.A. win on Sunday and the Seahawks will already be three games behind Los Angeles in the division with the leaves not even yet off the trees.

Yet Wagner sees key differences between those Seahawks of 11 months ago and this week’s.

Mainly because their best defensive player, the only one remaining from their Super Bowl team of three years ago, is healthy now.

“I wasn’t completely healthy. I (am) definitely looking forward to playing them again,” said Wagner, a southern California native.

“They beat us. That was 2017. This is 2018. You’re not going to do it again. That’s kind of my mindset. And I’m not hurt like I was last year, so that’s going to be different. It’s just identifying everything that’s different. ...

“I’ll be able to move a lot better than I was. So that is going to be different.”

Most of his moving with be horizontally, chasing the dynamic Gurley from sideline to sideline.

What’s the key to slowing him down?

“Hitting him,” Wagner said.

“They want to start off passing first, really. They try to make play a little back, really, and that’s when they attack you with the run. They have different styles of runs. They have people crossing your face. They’ve got receivers moving, tight ends moving. So this is a game that really tests your discipline. It really tests your eyes. You have to be very, very disciplined. Because they have so many different things, but when it comes down to it if you are disciplined you will make the plays that you need to. ... These guys definitely test your eyes, and what you are looking at, and your gaps.

“We know they are going to give him the ball,” Wagner said of Gurley. “They are going to get it to him with screens. They are going to get it him with inside runs, outside runs. And, our goal is to meet him, everywhere.

“My goal is to meet him everywhere he goes.”

This story was originally published October 3, 2018 at 4:44 PM.