SEATTLE — Rarely do NFL coaches use their opening remarks in postgame press conference to praise a punter, but it happened Sunday after Seattle’s 26-20 overtime victory over Denver at CenturyLink Field.
“I thought that Jon Ryan just had an incredible influence in this game throughout,” Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll told the media after the game. Added Carroll, “If there was anybody who was the MVP today, it might have been Jon Ryan with his effort because he had probably the best day of his career.”
Indeed, Ryan was outstanding against the Broncos, punting six times and dropping each one inside the Denver 20-yard line. Three of those were kicks of 58, 61 and 66 yards, and two of those had enough hang time that there was no return (one was a fair catch, the other an immediate tackle).
Ryan had three other shorter kicks, and two of those came down inside the Denver 10, with one being a fair catch and the other downed. The Broncos were able to get return yardage on only one of Ryan’s six punts.
But his biggest punt was a booming 79-yard free kick after a Seattle safety early in the fourth quarter. Kicking from the Seahawks 20, the kick was taken by Denver’s Emmanuel Sanders at the Broncos 1 and returned 22 yards.
“Taking a safety back there really isn’t the worst thing that can happen if you’re fortunate enough to change the field position,” Carroll pointed out. “And Jon kicked it … I don’t know how far he kicked it, but it might have been 80 yards in the air. The coverage and the kick and all that was extraordinary.”
Said Ryan: “You feel like you can contribute to what the defense is doing when you can pin them deep like that.”
A free kick after a safety “is a little bit different” than a normal punt, Ryan added, “because you’re not used to seeing guys running beside you. You’re used to see guys running toward you. But as a punter, you stand there (at practice) so many times and punt the ball out of your hand. So you don’t want to overthink it, you just want to punt it.
“(The safety) kind of took the wind out of our sails, and we needed kind of a big play to back them up a little bit.
“(Ryan) was amazing,” said Seattle linebacker K.J. Wright. “He does that in practice and he does it all the time in a game, and he really changed (Denver’s) field position. He did a tremendous job for us.”
The irony was, Sunday was Canada Day at CenturyLink Field. The Canadian anthem, “O Canada,” was sung during the pregame ceremonies, and a large Canadian flag was held on the field by a contingent of red-coated Canadian Mounties.
“As a Canadian, you always get a little fired up when you see the Mounties and hear ‘O Canada,” said Ryan, a native of Regina Saskatchewan.
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