K.J. Wright lives dream in 2-interception day, continues to prove his Seahawks worth
The Seahawks should let K.J. Wright sleep more.
The team’s longest-tenured veteran said he had a dream Saturday night while snoozing in Seattle’s road hotel in Charlotte, the Westin downtown.
“You know, it’s crazy. I had a dream that I had two picks,” Wright said Sunday. “Y’all may not believe me, but I really had a dream that I had two picks last night
“And I took a picture with two balls... I’m tellin’ you!”
Wright was talking in the visiting locker room at Bank of America stadium following the Seahawks’ 30-24 victory over Carolina Sunday—after, yes, the had two interceptions.
Wait, after three interceptions in his nine-year NFL career entering the Panthers game, he dreamed he’d get two? And then he did—in a span of five minutes?
Wright laughed at the long odds of that.
Wright’s two-interception breakout came in the third quarter. Seattle (11-3) needed both of them to surge back to the top of the NFC’s playoff seeding.
The first came after Carolina had moved inside the Seahawks’ 40-yard line with Seattle leading 20-10. Defensive tackle Poona Ford, strong again versus the run and pass, crashed in on quarterback Kyle Allen. Ford tipped the pass intended receiver Christian McCaffrey. Wright grabbed Ford’s deflection and returned it to midfield.
The Seahawks’ offense wasted that gift in just two plays. In the worst pass Seattle’s thrown in years, wide receiver Josh Gordon took a handoff on a reverse then chucked a shot put of a pass well short of double-covered DK Metcalf. Carolina’s Tre Boston easily intercepted.
Coach Pete Carroll’s apt assessment of Gordon’s pass: “It sucked.”
But two plays later, with the Panthers at their own 18, tackle Jarran Reed wasn’t fooled on Allen’s fake handoff and bootleg play right at him. The Panthers counted on Reed being tricked; they didn’t assign a blocker to him.
“I just figured, we were getting a lot of boots,” Reed said. “Sometimes, you’ve just got to take a shot.”
He did, right into Allen. The hit forced the quarterback’s throw to veer into the right flat. Wright had a better chance to catch that pass than any Panther. He did, with a slide to the ground.
Then Wright got to his feet and he veered, too—right into all the Panthers in the middle of the field instead of straight toward the goal line. Then he tried to jump Panthers offensive tackle Dennis Daley. Wright looked like he was jumping into a swimming pool with his kids. Daley got Wright somersaulting into the air into a hard fall to the ground at the Carolina 18.
The Seahawks converted Wright’s second interception in 1:28 of the third quarter into a field goal by Jason Myers for a 23-10 lead.
All-Pro linebacker partner Bobby Wagner roasted his good friend for that comical return.
“K.J.’s hands are amazing,” Wagner said. “His running-back skills? Not so much.
“If he would have gone left he probably would have had a touchdown. But he decided to try to jump over somebody. That didn’t work out so well.
“So we’re going to work on jumping over people at practice. Or he is.
“It was cool to watch him try to return. He went backwards.”
Wright copped to his caper.
“My hands are good,” he said. “My return skills are a little suspect.”
Then he jabbed back at his buddy.
“Bobby should have blocked a little better on that interception,” he said, “and I would have scored a touchdown.”
Wright also knocked down two other passes by Allen. By the end of the game, he was one of the only recognizable players on the defense.
Wagner left with a sprained ankle that did not look nor sound too serious. Free safety Quandre Diggs was out with a more badly sprained ankle. Wright’s outside-linebacker partner Mychal Kendricks missed the game with a hamstring injury. So did pass rushers Jadeveon Clowney (bad flu) and Ziggy Ansah (neck-nerve issue).
Coach Pete Carroll thinks the Seahawks are getting some of those veterans back this weekend for the home game against Arizona, particularly Ansah and Kendricks.
Seattle’s defense that allowed two late touchdowns in extended garbage time to turn a 30-10 game with 5 minutes left into a 30-24 final in Carolina included this preseason-like look: rookies Ben Burr-Kirven, Cody Barton, Ugo Amadi and Marquise Blair, Shaquem Griffin back at linebacker instead of his recent end pass-rushing role, plus Lano Hill going in and out for Diggs at safety.
It was Sunday at the Hodgepodge Lodge. But with Wright and Wagner, who also had an interception to turn away Carolina late in the first half, the Seahawks who have been here the longest were the best.
“We had to put it on our shoulders,” Wright said, “and we made it happen.”
Seattle’s sixth win in seven games was the latest reminder that at age 30, Wright still has prime value to the Seahawks. This is the first year of a two-year contract he signed in March after briefly shopping in free agency. He sees this as his prove-it year; all the guaranteed money of his new contract is in 2019. He’s guaranteed nothing in 2020. He has said he has to earn the second year of his deal.
He may have.
His first two-interception game of his life, at any level back to his days as a kid in Olive Branch, Miss., allowed the Seahawks to finish a franchise record 7-1 on the road this regular season. It has the Seahawks in first place in the NFC West again. It has Seattle two wins to close the regular season, at home Sunday against Arizona (4-9-1) and at home Dec. 29 against San Francisco (11-3), from a first-round bye and at least one home playoff game.
And it shows Wright remains vital to Seattle’s defense and team.
“If we DO have to go on the road in the playoffs,” Wright, “we are ready for it.
“It was just my day.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2019 at 9:45 AM.
