RENTON — It’s a moment that’s come to define two men.
When the Seattle Seahawks travel to face the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, the scene is set for the reunion of two players who were on opposite ends of a play that kick-started one dynasty and ended the possibility of another.
Those players are Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman and Ravens quarterback Matt Schaub, and their careers can be summed up by their intersection on Sept. 29, 2013, when Schaub was playing for the Houston Texans.
“Yes, I do have fond memories of that game,” Sherman said Wednesday during his press conference at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center.
That moment further solidified Sherman as arguably the NFL’s best cornerback, while Schaub’s name is now synonymous with the term “pick-six.”
At the time, the game was billed as a battle between two Super Bowl contenders. Seattle was the brash upstart, coming off its first winning season in five years and starting the campaign with three straight wins. Meanwhile, Houston won 22 games the previous two seasons and, at 2-1, fancied itself for another crack at a playoff run.
“I remember that game being incredibly hot,” Sherman said. “I remember them fooling us with the roof open at the beginning of the game, then trappings us with the roof closed with the heat and the humidity and sweating to death.”
For much of the game it seemed like it would be Houston’s day. The Texans led 20-3 at halftime and took a 20-6 advantage into the fourth quarter. The Seahawks pulled within seven midway through the fourth, but a Russell Wilson interception with 5:13 remaining gave Houston the ball with good field position and a chance to put the game away.
Enter Sherman.
On third-and-4 from the Seattle 40-yard line, the Texans dialed up a play-action bootleg. Safety Kam Chancellor blitzed on the back side and was right on top of Schaub, forcing Schaub to get rid of the ball quickly toward tight end Owen Daniels in the right flat.
Sherman, reading the play all the way, stepped in front of Daniels and raced 58 yards for a game-tying touchdown — losing his shoe in the process.
“It was one of (the defining moments of the season),” said Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner, who escorted Sherman into the end zone. “It was definitely an exciting play. Down, come back, win, it was definitely a fun game for us.”
Sherman said he knew the play was coming.
“It was definitely a result of preparation,” Sherman said. “It’s a play we saw multiple times, that we knew they run in that part of the field with the ball on that hash, the down and distance was perfect. It was a great call by the coordinator, it was a great read by me. It was a bit of a gamble, but an educated guess. I took my hypothesis and executed.”
Seattle went on to win the game with a field goal in overtime, finish the season 13-3 and march to its first Super Bowl championship, and the Seahawks continue to be one of the NFL’s premier teams. Sherman picked up first-team All-Pro selections both that season and the following one.
Houston’s season fell apart as it finished with 14 straight losses en route to a league-worst 2-14 record, and the Texans remain stuck in the middle of the NFL pack.
It’s been an even worse path for Schaub. Schaub was in his seventh season as Houston’s starting quarterback, leading the league in passing yards in 2009. However, Sherman’s pick-six was the third straight game in which Schaub had an interception returned for a touchdown, tying the league record. Schaub threw another pick-six the next week against San Francisco — on his first pass attempt of the game — to grab the record for his own. He was benched midway through the season and hasn’t been a team’s No. 1 option since.
But Schaub’s backup status hasn’t stopped him from throwing pick-sixes. He’s had a pick-six in both of his starts since taking over for Baltimore starter Joe Flacco, who suffered a season-ending knee injury, and Schaub finds himself riding yet another three-game streak of throwing interceptions that were returned for TDs. If he throws another pick-six Sunday against Seattle, he will match his own dubious NFL record. The Washington Post calculated the chances of a player twice throwing pick-sixes in four consecutive games at about one-in-46-million.
Sherman played his role in creating Schaub’s pick-six distinction, and if Schaub were to accomplish that incredible feat of throwing pick-sixes in four straight games a second time, there would be no more appropriate person on the other end than Sherman.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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