Seahawks couldn’t believe, sure glad Broncos yanked Russell Wilson and tried long kick
Russell Wilson got what he had hoped he wouldn’t get, but deep down probably expected.
He had said this past week he hoped the reaction from fans to his return to Seattle would be “positive.”
Nope. He got booed. A lot. From the moment the first paying of 68,965 fans jammed into Lumen Field entered the stadium Monday afternoon to see his return to Seattle.
That was two hours before kickoff.
The booing of the Seahawks former number 3 — and now Broncos enemy since his trade to Denver March 8 — didn’t end. Not until the Pacific Northwesterns were chanting “GEE-no! GEE-no!” to celebrate Geno Smith, Wilson’s replacement, beating Wilson in a 17-16 thriller Monday night.
“Obviously, the environment is always special here,” Wilson said. “I’ve been here for 10 years. It was special tonight.”
And especially raucous.
“I didn’t waver, you know,” Wilson said after he finished 29 for 42 passing for 340 yards with one touchdown and two sacks. “They may cheer for you. They may boo you. They may...they’ll love you one day and hate you the next. That’s sports.
“At the end of the day, I’m going to keep competing, keep battling. I know who I am.”
Who Wilson was in the final minute of Monday night’s game stunned the Seahawks.
He was exiting the field with the game on the line.
Russell Wilson rallies, then exits
Seattle was clinging to the one-point lead. Wilson had moved his Broncos from their own 22-yard line with 4 minutes left to near midfield. Denver had 1:11 remaining before a third-and 14 at the Broncos 45. Wilson and coach Nathaniel Hackett had all three of his team’s time outs remaining. Yet after a short completion to running back Javonte Williams got Denver to the Seahawks’ 46-yard line for a fourth and 5, Hackett had Wilson stand in shotgun formation and expire the play clock.
Instead of a quick time out and a minute with two more time outs — and the Broncos’ newly minted, $243 million quarterback needing 5 yards on one play to extend the drive for a better chance to win the game — Hackett sent Wilson to the bench.
The Seahawks couldn’t believe it.
“I honestly didn’t know what was going on,” said outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu, a star in his Seahawks debut. “It was so chaotic.”
Wilson finally called Denver’s first time out of the half, but with just 20 seconds left in the game. Then he and the starting offense walked to the Broncos’ sideline, yielding to kicker Brandon McManus and the field-goal team.
It was an audacious, 64-yard try. It would have been the second-longest successful field goal in NFL history.
The league was founded in 1920.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“I was surprised that they took Russ out (of) there at the end,” Carroll said. “We weren’t thinking field goal there. We were thinking it was fourth down and they were still going. So it gave us a chance to win the game on that play.
“That was fortunate there.”
Nwosu said what many were thinking. At least many who had watched Wilson completed 24 fourth-quarter and overtime comeback victories in 10 years with the Seahawks.
“Once they brought out that field-goal (team) I was like ‘OK.’ Because Russ is so dangerous in short yardage,” Nwosu said. “He can make a lot of things happen.
“So when they took him out of the game and brought in field goal I was like, ‘Maybe they don’t trust him in that situation.’”
Russell Wilson wanted to get to the 46
Wilson said McManus had told him and their coach the offense needed to get to the Seahawks 46-yard line to kick the winning field goal.
That’s where Denver was, at the 46.
“We said, ‘Where can you make it from tonight?’ And he said ‘46, left hash,’” Wilson said. That was before the drive. We got it there.”
McManus kicked plenty long enough but wide left — just after Carroll coyly called a Seahawks time out to try to make the kicker think more about the try.
McManus re-tried. It was again long enough. And it was again wide left.
Lumen Field exploded like it was the Seahawks’ 2014 NFC championship season again.
Wilson never got the final chance to beat his former team and silence all those boos. As McManus kick veered wide and the final seconds ticked off, Wilson stood on the sideline, watching helplessly his former team win on a field he’d set all of Seattle’s passing records over the previous 10 years.
“Unfortunately, didn’t go in,” Wilson said. “I think he has the leg for it for sure. Just went a little left I believe and just...I believe in Coach Hackett. I believe in what we’re doing. Believe in everything. And any time you can try to find a way to make a play on fourth and 5, that’s great, too.
“Also, I don’t think it was the wrong decision. I think he can make it. Obviously, hindsight, he didn’t make it, but we were in that situation again I wouldn’t doubt whatever he decided.”
Hackett said if he had to do it again, he would — and his guy would make the second-longest field goal in NFL history for the win.
“I have confidence in him,” the former Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator in his first head-coaching game for Denver said, “and if we have to put him in that situation again, I think he’ll be able to make it.
“That’s a long field goal to hit. I think he’s capable of that, but obviously I wish we would’ve got a lot closer. It put us in that weird spot there because we were in the field-goal range, but we were on that fourth-down situation. ...We just made the decision we wanted to take or shot there on that one.”
Hugs for DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, more
After three kneel-downs by Smith to win the game for the Seahawks, who were 6 1/2-point home underdogs, Wilson briefly met at midfield with Carroll. Amid a mass of cameras, the coach said to his former quarterback he turned into a Super Bowl champion in Seattle “nice game.”
Wilson hugged DK Metcalf.
He hugged Quandre Diggs in another emotional embrace.
He hugged Penny Hart, another Seahawks wide receiver Wilson says he still talks to Hart “just about every other day.” He talked to many other Seahawks friends. He congratulated wide receiver Tyler Lockett for getting engaged this past weekend.
He led a prayer with many of his former teammtes kneeling in a circle with him, arms and hands clasped.
“Seattle has been amazing for me,” Wilson said.
“Anybody who thinks otherwise, they don’t know my heart and how much this city has meant to me. From all the kids I’ve met to building our (Why Not You Academy) school (in south King County) to all the games we won here, all the special times. Forever grateful for it.
“So I got to see a lot of teammates afterwards. DK, Tyler. DK, he’s one of my best friends in the world. We talk every week, couple times a week. Penny Hart, we talk every other day. Tyler Lockett, you know, just seeing him get engaged. These things matter. The game matters obviously when it matters. But your friends matter, too.
“So seeing like Dissly, guys like Quandre Diggs, I was telling him how much he’s inspired me just as a father. He’s an amazing dad. I think his heart -- he’s got an amazing heart too as well. There are so many guys. ...
“Tonight was special. You know, it’s the other side than I am used to, but it was still a special environment, a place that I’ve always loved.”
This story was originally published September 12, 2022 at 11:15 PM.
