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<< Previous   of   Next >> Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald  (click to enlarge) Seattle's Josh Wilson (26) avoids the tackle of St. Louis corner Ricky Manning Jr. on a kick return in Seattle's 37-13 win over the Rams on Sept. 21.   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Report scores and results to 425-339-3470 or 1-866-6-SCORES (Call after 4:30 p.m.) E-mail information including items for Tuesday's Communities Sports Roundup and Thursday's Outdoor Calendar, to sports@heraldnet.com Kevin Brown, Sports Editor kbrown@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, November 21, 2008 Wilson's play finally catching up to his running mouth The Seattle Seahawks cornerback never learned that silence is golden, although his teammates have offered him money to zip it By Scott M. Johnson Herald Writer RENTON -- Five-thousand dollars. In cash. No strings attached. The offer would have been hard for even one of the NFL's highest-paid players to ignore, much less a second-year player whose salary is hovering around the league minimum for veterans. Five grand. All Josh Wilson had to do was keep his mouth shut. For a week. Operation Shutdown Corner was on the table. The Seattle Seahawks' 23-year-old cornerback said thanks, but no thanks. "I told them I'd think about it if you got up to 10 (thousand)," said Wilson, who had standing offers of $1,000 from the defensive line and the linebackers and a promise that the defensive backs would cover the other $3,000. "I'd have trouble keeping quiet for a day. But for a week, I definitely couldn't do it." While Wilson hasn't stopped talking, he's finally doing some things on the field to back it up. The Seahawks' biggest playmaker of the past month, Wilson has learned to put his money where his mouth is. "Last year, he was talking but he wasn't doing anything. He wasn't backing it up," defensive tackle Rocky Bernard said. "This year, he's out there doing something (on the field), so we tolerate it." The Seahawks veterans weren't always as tolerant. Too often in 2007, the gregarious rookie would carry on and on. And on. "He hasn't stopped talking since he got drafted," Bernard said. And what does he say? "Nothing," Bernard added. "That's the point. If he was actually talking about something intelligent, you might accept it." Wilson's non-stop talking has made him the butt of several jokes in the locker room. When he was a rookie last season, he got tormented by older teammates -- all in good fun, of course. "I liked it," Wilson said this week. "I like to play jokes. It was all on me last year, but I was a rookie. It sucks to be them, because it's going to be on them for the rest of my career. You don't joke with a joker." Truth be told, Wilson brings on a lot of the abuse himself. He likes to antagonize older, bigger teammates -- defensive linemen are his favorite targets -- and Wilson's motor-mouth tends to beg for reaction. "That was his problem last year," said veteran safety Deon Grant, who has taken Wilson under his wing. "B-Russ (safety Brian Russell,) he comes from the old school, with (former Minnesota Vikings teammate) Cris Carter and all them guys, so B-Russ wasn't having any of that. He was like, 'OK, I'm not taking any more from this run-of-the-mouth punk.' "It's not like B-Russ really thought Josh was a punk or anything. It was just brotherly love." As surrogate older siblings, Grant and Russell have made it a point to help Wilson make the transition from talkative rookie to professional. The duo has apparently gotten through, as evidenced by Wilson becoming one of the most improved players on the entire team. "He's more serious in his approach," defensive backs coach Jim Mora said. "I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that Brian and Deon kind of pounded him down for it. He's a talkative young man. They pounded him about it, and he took it very well." Not that Wilson has gone silent. He's even talkative in games, as Mora pointed out this week. The assistant coach brought up, as evidence, an exchange in the second quarter of last Sunday's game against Arizona. After Cardinals receivers Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin caught a few passes on Wilson, Mora told the defense to go into a formation that would provide safety help on Wilson's side of the field. "They weren't throwing at Tru (Pro Bowl cornerback Marcus Trufant) at all," Mora said. "So after a couple series, we said we're going to run a coverage called Cloud Right, where we roll all of the coverage over to the right. And (Wilson) looks at me and says, 'What are you talking about?'" On Thursay, Wilson chuckled while recalling the exchange. "I said: 'No. I want to play man-to-man,'" he said four days after the 26-20 loss. "'I'm going to play football with these guys. That's what you trust me to do, so that's what I'm going to do.' "(Mora) enjoyed that. He listened to me. We didn't play any cloud. I think we had one snap in cloud, and then it worked out. We never ended up going to that cloud again." While playing man-to-man, Wilson made a key interception late in the second quarter. He stepped in front of a Kurt Warner pass, caught it and then did what he does best. His 58-yard interception return set up the Seahawks' first touchdown and helped get them back in the game. "I love having the ball in my hands," said Wilson, who returns kicks for the Seahawks and took an interception 75 yards for a touchdown against San Francisco last month. "As a defensive player, there's not many times when you have the ball in your hands. So when you do, you try to make something happen." "When he gets the ball," defensive coordinator John Marshall said, "guys get up on the sideline because they know it's going to be exciting." The Seahawks like to watch Wilson play. They just don't always like to listen to him run his mouth. "He's a talker," Mora said. "You cannot mention a subject without him having something to say about it." So what's the longest period of time anyone has seen Wilson keep his mouth shut? "Thirty seconds," linebacker Julian Peterson joked. "And that's when he's thinking of something else to say." For $10,000, maybe Wilson could keep quiet for an entire week. Maybe. Probably not. "He couldn't be quiet," Grant said, "for a day." Notes: Wilson (ankle) and quarterback Matt Hasselbeck (back) returned to practice Thursday and are expected to play in Sunday's game against Washington. … Defensive tackle Red Bryant (ankle) did not practice. READER COMMENTS Be the first to comment. 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