‘Gifted, spirited soul’ Luke Willson has a huge, unique role in Seahawks’ unusual playoffs
The Seahawks’ roster didn’t need Luke Willson. Not in a purely football, Xs and Os sense.
Seattle was already stocked at tight end. Overstocked, really.
Greg Olsen returned remarkably quickly from a foot injury that threatened to end his career. Jacob Hollister and Will Dissly have been fully in the game plans this season. Rookie draft choice Colby Parkinson recently made his NFL debut coming off a broken foot from the summer.
So why in the names of Fabio and Justin Trudeau did the Seahawks sign Willson back last week, after they had released him in November? Why did they promote their long-haired, longer-loved Canadian from the practice squad to the active roster Wednesday, ahead of Saturday’s NFC wild-card playoff game for Seattle (12-4) against the Los Angeles Rams (10-6)?
It wasn’t for the production. Willson, who turns 31 next week, had zero catches and had played just 10 snaps on offense in three months this season with the Seahawks, before they released him. He had one catch in three games with Baltimore. The Ravens released him last month.
The reason Willson is back after 6 1/2 seasons and two Super Bowls with Seattle, then three games away?
It’s because of Willson’s best quality. The one that is more important right now, this weekend, than its ever been for the Seahawks—inside empty, quiet Lumen Field during the NFL’s COVID-19 playoffs like no other.
“Luke has been such an instrumental part of the spirit of this club that I wanted to get him close to it and have as much impact as possible,” coach Pete Carroll said Thursday.
That is, “Techno Thursday.” Willson threw that onto the Seahawks years ago. The team’s fifth-round draft choice from 2013 brought comically short shorts and pulsating techno dance music blaring on his retro boom box compete with neon lighting through the locker room and onto the practice field on the fifth day of every week.
It’s a team tradition. Techo Thursday has become so ridiculous and popular that second-year star wide receiver DK Metcalf continued wearing short shorts in Thursday practices even when Willson was gone. He went to Detroit in free agency for a year in 2018 to be closer to his native Ontario, Canada, and then briefly to Baltimore last month.
When a certain Euro-techno song comes on in road stadiums to enliven game atmospheres, the tight ends and other Seahawks jump up and down on the sidelines and dance like Willson does to the song on “Techno Thursdays” back at team headquarters. That also was happening when Willson wasn’t with the team.
It’s a quintessential Carroll move, bringing back Willson not really to catch passes but for intangibles, for motivation, energy and vibe.
“He’s just an unusually gifted, spirited soul,” Carroll said.
The intangible factor Willson brings could be useful on an unusually quiet game day Saturday. This month more than ever, the Seahawks must produce more spirit and energy from within to win in the postseason.
Saturday will be unlike any home playoff game in Seattle’s history. Instead of 69,000 screaming fans making Lumen Field shake and offenses malfunction, they and all of you will be home again watching on television again. The state of Washington’s restrictions against public gatherings because of the coronavirus pandemic are dragging on, through the NFL playoffs.
“In this environment where we have to generate all of our energy and our own juice and all of that, I really missed not have Luke here during the time that he wasn’t here,” Carroll said.
What they’re missing
The Seahawk who’s thrown passes to Willson for more than six years sure appreciates that he’s back.
Russell Wilson is 5-0 in his career in home playoff games. That includes three of the loudest, seismic moments in Seattle football history:
- “The Tip” by Richard Sherman. The star cornerbacks’ tipped a final pass away from 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree to Seahawks linebacker Malcolm Smith in the end zone at the end of Seattle’s 23-17 win in the 2013 NFC championship game at overloaded CenturyLink Field. Seattle advanced to Super Bowl 48 and won its only NFL title in the New Jersey Meadowlands two weeks later.
- The Seahawks’ comeback in the next NFC championship game the following season. Down 16-0 in the second half at home to the Green Bay Packers, it was Wilson to Willson in the perhaps the tight end’s biggest moment. Wilson the quarterback did a double-spin scramble then chucked a prayer that Willson the tight end answered for the crucial two-point conversion. That ensured Seattle reached overtime.
- The Seahawks won in the extra period on Wilson’s touchdown pass to Jermaine Kearse. That sent the Seahawks to Super Bowl 49.
But Wilson’s never played a playoff game in the silence and emptiness that he’ll have inside Lumen Field Saturday. The Rams will be enjoying the least amount of home-field advantage the Seahawks have ever had for a playoff game in Seattle. Heck, it’s not even supposed to rain.
“Yeah, I was talking to (his agent) Mark Rodgers about that this morning, actually, on the phone,” Wilson said Wednesday. “We were talking just about how much different it is. I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s crazy, because you are not going to be able to come from the playoffs and be in the stadium.
“It is definitely different. Obviously, Lumen Field’s a special place. It’s one of the best stadiums in the world. It is the best stadium with the fans there, and it’s special. Special moments. Special place.
“I just miss the stadium shaking, literally, on the field while you’re standing there and it’s the fourth quarter and the defense’s out there and it’s fourth and 3 or something like that, the fans are going crazy, and I’ve got my towel in my hand. I miss those moments.”
Wilson said he was talking to Olsen, the 35-year-old tight end and former Carolina Panthers Super Bowl starter who’s in his first season with Seattle, on the plane ride home from the team’s win over San Francisco last weekend. They talked about the energy, and missing it, inside Lumen Field this season.
“It’s crazy,” Wilson said. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, I never really got to experience (it). ...I’ve never been on this side and walking around the city and just feeling the energy of how special the city is and how much we’d all love it.’
“And so, yeah, I think that we miss our fans. But we know it’ll be right there with us and cheering us on and hopefully we can do something special here.”
Need to create their own
Carroll—the preacher of “always compete!”—has challenged his Seahawks all season to be the best in the league at creating their own energy. It’s the coach’s way to try to mitigate the loss of the fans and the league’s biggest home-crowd advantage along with Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium.
Each week in NFL stadiums that are otherwise library-silent, one can hear from press boxes multiple levels away Seattle’s players woofin’ over huge hits by teammates. It’s also easy to hear the players’ cheers on big third- and fourth-down stops, on huge plays by the offense.
At times, it’s manufactured emotion. Carroll acknowledges that. Embraces it, even.
Like COVID-19 testing in which the Seahawks are the only NFL team without a positive case this season, the 69-year-old coach sees self-made energy as another competitive edge. He believes it can make the difference between winning and losing.
Starting Saturday, that’s the difference between going to the Super Bowl and going home.
That’s why Luke Willson is back.
“We got a chance to get him back,” Carroll said. “Wanted to get him as close to the action as possible.”
