SEATTLE — In a game the Seattle Seahawks ultimately needed a few miracles to win, they got two big ones from their special teams in Sunday’s 28-22 overtime victory against Green Bay in Sunday’s NFC championship game.
The first was a fake field goal midway through the third quarter that became a touchdown when holder/punter Jon Ryan took the ball and rolled to his left before passing to tackle and eligible receiver Garry Gilliam in the end zone. The second was a make-or-break onside kick with a little over two minutes to play that Seattle turned into a go-ahead touchdown.
Though Green Bay got a late field goal to send the game to overtime, Seattle won with a touchdown pass from quarterback Russell Wilson to wide receiver Jermaine Kearse just 3:19 into OT.
Fake field goals and onside kicks are iffy plays, but they were golden for the Seahawks on Sunday. The fake field goal caught the Packers completely by surprise, with Ryan passing to a wide-open Gilliam for a touchdown that closed Seattle’s deficit to 16-7.
According to Ryan, Seattle coaches put the play in at Thursday’s team practice.
On Sunday the play was called by the coaches on the sideline, though Seattle’s field goal team had the option of kicking if the Packers “didn’t present the right look (at the line of scrimmage),” Ryan said. “But as long as we had the look on the field that we wanted to go with, we’d stick with it.
“(The Packers) were rushing us hard off the edge and we thought we could take advantage of it,” he said.
Ryan’s first option was to run the ball, but as a Green Bay defender approached he simply tossed a short pass to Gilliam, who had brush-blocked at the line and then broke free in the secondary.
As the ball approached, “it was like it was spinning in slow motion,” said Gilliam, a rookie who played tight end at Penn State until his senior season, when he moved to tackle. “I’m honored to be part of this team (and help) in any way I can. And to score a touchdown at that point in the game was huge.”
Steven Hauschka’s onside kick came after a 1-yard Wilson run with 2:13 to play in the fourth quarter, which pulled the Seahawks within 19-14. Angling the ball toward the Green Bay sideline, the kick immediately bounded off the ground and high into the air.
Green Bay’s Brandon Bostick had a chance to make the catch, but the ball slipped through his hands and off his face mask, and was then caught out of the air by Seattle’s Chris Matthews, a backup wide receiver. The play gave the Seahawks possession at midfield.
When Seattle was driving for the Wilson touchdown, Seattle coaches told Hauschka the onside kick was coming, “so I got a chance to practice it on the sideline. And it was helpful to get that feel for it.”
The trick to executing a good onside kick, particularly on turf, is “literally kicking the nose (of the football) into the ground and then it pops up,” Hauschka said. The funny thing is, he added, “we haven’t kicked one of those in the four years I’ve been here. And I’ve only kicked a couple in my whole career.”
For Matthews, who was with Seattle for the first game of the season, then waived, then re-signed to the team’s practice squad and finally promoted to the active roster, his role in Seattle’s victory “is so surreal. This is a blessing to me. I’m here now, my team did it and I was a part of it,” he said.
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