SEATTLE Only noble, almost unbelievable restraint kept Cliff Avril from drilling the Rams’ punter into 2016.
St. Louis Johnny Hekker hit the Seahawks’ defensive end from the side unnecessarily while Hekker’s punt was airborne in the second quarter of Seattle’s 23-17 loss Sunday. Avril fell, got up — and looked incensed.
He approached the punter, then backed off to avoid a retaliation penalty.
“We had a ‘safe’ call on,” Avril said, meaning guarding against one of the many fake punts St. Louis has pulled on Seattle over the years. “We’re just making sure he punts and I’m trotting down, and I see it’s a fair catch. Someone comes from behind and hits me. And it happened to be the doggone punter!”
Officials flagged Hekker for unnecessary roughness. That made Avril laugh.
“It was just a stupid move by him, I think, personally,” Avril said.
“He’s a punter!”
When the ball was again in the air, fellow Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett stalked Hekker like a lion versus prey on the Serengeti. Hekker saw Bennett approaching menacingly and basically curled up in the fetal position on the turf to avoid contact.
“Like a coward,” Bennett said.
It would have been even more comical for the Seahawks had they not been trailing 10-0 by then.
“He was scared. He squealed like a little girl,” Bennett said.
“To me, he’s trying to hurt Cliff. Cliff’s got a family, too. He could’ve come chip Cliff, what if Cliff blew his knee out? Nobody said anything about that. But that’s just the kind of players they have on their team, people that do stuff like that.
“I don’t know what I would have done to him. I’m six years removed from the dude, where I come from. So I’m just trying to stay in the suburbs.”
Avril said Hekker, who is from the Seattle suburb of Bothell and played at Bothell High School, apologized to him afterward.
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