GLENDALE, Ariz. – Chike Okeafor tossed aside the Seattle Seahawks’ best player, drilled their Pro Bowl quarterback, and then effectively ended their hopes of a comeback Sunday afternoon.
But it was what the current Arizona Cardinal and former Seahawk said in the locker room afterward that carried the most venom.
Okeafor, who has taken shots at his former team on several occasions, was at it again after Sunday’s 27-21 win over the Seahawks, saying that the team disrespected him by not making a serious contract offer during his free agency in the spring of 2005.
“If you want to penny pinch and try to get people for less, that’s disrespect,” Okeafor said Sunday. “You know they have it. When they look you in the eye and say, ‘This is all we’ve got,’ then you’re like, ‘OK, if you’re not going to be honest with me, go to hell.’”
While Okeafor continues to spread ill will on his former team Sunday, he could have simply let his play do the talking. The 245-pound defensive end made what may have been the most important play of the game, and he did it against a five-time Pro Bowler.
Okeafor’s 8-yard sack of Matt Hasselbeck on a third-and-12 in Arizona territory with time running out served as a crippling blow to the Seahawks’ comeback chances. It also raised a few eyebrows in that he beat left tackle Walter Jones.
“What it means,” Okeafor boasted in Muhammad Ali-speak as he skipped off the field Sunday, “is he’s not a machine.”
Asked for clarification, Okeafor added: “It means (Jones) can be beat.”
In the Seahawks’ locker room, Jones offered no excuses for the sack.
“It was just a great move by him,” he said of Okeafor. “He gave me the club move, I didn’t recover, and he got inside. That’s what it was. There was no stunt or anything; he just gave me a great move inside. We had been battling all day, and he got me.”
Jones, who rarely allows a single sack over the length of an entire season, has now given up six this year. He gave up two in last month’s loss to San Francisco, including one that buried the Seahawks on their final drive.
Yet Okeafor scoffed at the notion that Jones has lost a step.
“How many games have we played? Two or three sacks in that time?” Okeafor said. “C’mon, man, he’s not a machine. The man is beatable.
“Most people go into that situation thinking, I’m not going to beat this guy. But that’s when the true spirit rises through. If I (thought like) that, I wouldn’t have gotten a sack (Sunday).”
Okeafor was giving Jones his utmost respect, but the same couldn’t be said for his former team. He claimed that the Seahawks did not appreciate his 2004 contributions and added that the front office was less than truthful in contract negotiations after that season.
“I was underpaid the whole time I was there, and (played all) out,” Okeafor said Sunday. “It’s about commitment. They didn’t make a commitment to me, so how could I bless them with my skills in the prime of my career?
“…There comes a time where if you’re not playing like a blue-collar player, you need to stop being paid like a blue-collar player.”
Asked whether Sunday’s game served as a form of redemption, Okeafor said he didn’t feel like he proved anything to the Seahawks.
“They knew what was up,” he said. “They had Big Walt and those guys on the better side of the line, and they were still sliding (running backs) that way and giving him some help. So there was respect,” Okeafor said. “But they didn’t want to respect me with what puts food on the table.”
With 3 sacks in the past two games, Okeafor is rewarding the Cardinals for putting $25 million worth of food on his table.
And on Sunday, he got his most impressive sack of all.
“I’m a narrow cat,” the 245-pounder said after beating the 315-pound Jones, “but I’ve got a lot of power in this body.”
Said Jones: “It’s tough. In that situation, you don’t want to give up a sack. It was big for them, and it closed out the game for them.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
