James and the giant ego

  • Todd Fredrickson / Herald Writer
  • Sunday, October 28, 2001 9:00pm
  • Sports

By Todd Fredrickson

Herald Writer

SEATTLE – In the too-cool world of the NFL, it’s pretty rare for a player to admit that a game against former teammates carries special weight, so it was refreshing to hear James McKnight say Sunday that, of course, he was a little extra jacked up to play the Seattle Seahawks.

“I talked to the guys and just told them I got traded from here,” McKnight said after catching the decisive touchdown pass in Miami’s 24-20 victory. “It’s not something personal or some resentment towards that team. It’s just that we came out here to show them that the Dolphins are a better team today, and we did that.”

McKnight had a lot to do with that, catching eight passes for 94 yards, including a 39-yard touchdown pass from Jay Fiedler with 6:16 left that was the game’s final scoring play.

It was his most productive game of the season for Miami, which signed McKnight as a free agent this year after he’d spent the last two seasons in Dallas, and it came after a week of practice in which he asked for more opportunities.

“You kind of get tired when you’re out there all day and you’re not getting the ball. You don’t feel like a part of the offense,” said McKnight, who had just three receptions in Miami’s previous two games. “We’re not selfish. We don’t want to hog the ball. We just want to get two or three touches a game and be able to make plays.”

McKnight launched his career with the Seahawks in 1994 as a rookie free agent out of Liberty and was traded to Dallas in 1999 for a third-round draft choice.

Last season with the Cowboys was his first as a full-time NFL starter, and he led Dallas with 52 receptions for 926 yards.

This after starting just seven games in his five years in Seattle and being more or less summarily dismissed by Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren when Holmgren took over in Seattle two seasons ago. At the time, in fact, the Seahawks seemed rather proud of themselves for extracting from Dallas a third-round draft choice for someone whose best season to that time showed 34 catches for 637 yards and six touchdowns.

McKnight, always gracious during his time with the Seahawks, declined to gloat after Sunday’s game.

“God gave me the grace to come up here and humble myself and not be so proud, not be too arrogant about proving to those guys I should still be a Seahawk,” he said.

Clearly, however, he is enjoying playing for a team that expects to be in the playoffs every year and would have considered a loss on Sunday to be an upset. Sunday’s victory moved Miami to 4-2 and kept the Dolphins in first place in the AFC East Division.

“We know that if we go out there and play mistake-free football we’re going to win a whole lot of games and ultimately the Super Bowl,” McKnight said.

“We’re on top of the division. The only way we can lose it is if we give it away.”

McKnight hauled in the key touchdown pass behind one of his old friends on the Seahawks, cornerback Willie Williams, beating him deep in single coverage on a post pattern from the right slot.

“I practiced with him for years. I kind of know his tendencies and how he likes to play me, so it was friendly fire out there,” McKnight said. “It was just a sweet throw by Jay (Fiedler). He gave me an opportunity to run up under it.”

Williams, who didn’t have such a bad day himself with two first-quarter interceptions, wasn’t the least bit surprised by McKnight’s performance.

“You all were burying him when he was a Seahawk,” Williams said to reporters, “but James McKnight, he’s a great guy and he’s going to be a great receiver.”

McKnight wasn’t the only ex-Seahawk to play a key role in Miami’s victory as running back Lamar Smith had a 1-yard touchdown run in the third quarter that tied the score at 17.

Smith is most often remembered in Seattle as being the driver in a 1994 automobile accident that left Seahawks defensive lineman Mike Frier partially paralyzed.

Smith was a rookie at the time, and the accident created a black cloud that dogged him his whole time in Seattle. He left for New Orleans as a free agent in 1998 and signed with Miami before last season, when his career finally took off with 1,139 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns.

McKnight declined to say whether he and Smith had any conversations last week about Smith’s difficult times in Seattle, but another Dolphin with Northwest ties, punt returner Jeff Ogden, said it was obvious this game meant just a little more than the average road trip to those two guys.

“Obviously, you want to show something,” said Ogden, a Snohomish native. “I know it’s a big game for them, and they did a great job.”

“I love the fans of Seattle,” McKnight said. “I’ve got a lot of friends here still on the team, so it was just sweet seeing those guys again, sweet being in front of this crowd again and letting them know I’m a part of the Northwest.

“But right now duty calls in Miami.”

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