If St. Louis Rams head coach Mike Martz had had a crystal ball at the time, he probably would have tossed it out for being defective.
Martz, then an unknown offensive assistant with the Los Angeles Rams, never could have predicted how important the Seattle Seahawks would become in his franchise’s future.
After all, the Rams and Seahawks were in different conferences, had played only five head-to-head games over 16 seasons and shared only one common link. They were both in the midst of three-year runs at the bottom of their respective divisions.
But that was the early 1990s. Now, with the Rams having moved to St. Louis and the Seahawks having been shipped off to the NFC West, the two teams appear destined to be tied together for a long time.
“It’s beginning to be a good thing for both teams in the West,” Seattle defensive lineman Cedric Woodard said of a rivalry that will continue this Sunday when the 3-0 Seahawks host the Rams. “I think people from around the league see the teams to beat in this division as the Rams and us. So we’ve just got to see where we’re at.”
The budding division rivalry got a kick-start in 2002, 26 years after the two teams’ only other meeting as NFC West clubs. The Seahawks had entered the NFL as an NFC West club in 1976, yet played only one year in that division before spending the next 25 years in the AFC West.
Two years ago, having changed conferences as part of the NFL’s realignment, the Seahawks split a pair of games with the Rams. Both teams won at home, which was a pattern that would continue in Year 2.
But last year’s meetings brought a whole new level of excitement, starting with the fact that both teams eventually made the playoffs. The games were decided by a combined six points, and each had a memorable ending.
A September game at Seahawks Stadium saw Seattle ride the emotional wave of an excited crowd en route to a comeback victory. The Seahawks, who had entered that game with a 2-0 record and one-game lead in the division, fell behind 23-10 entering the fourth quarter.
Darrell Jackson’s 15-yard touchdown reception early in the final period cut the deficit to six points. Anthony Simmons made a key interception later in the quarter, and then Seattle went on a 10-play, 74-yard drive late in the game to tie the score at 23 on Koren Robinson’s 3-yard TD catch with a minute left in regulation. Josh Brown’s point-after gave the Seahawks their first lead in more than 47 minutes, and a defensive stand assured the win.
“That did a lot for our confidence,” Robinson said Thursday. “We were down, and we had to come down and put it together. We knew offensively that we had something special, and that gave us confidence going into the rest of the season.”
The December rematch, played in St. Louis, lost some of its luster when Seattle went through a midseason swoon to give the Rams a comfortable lead atop the division. But the Seahawks were still fighting for a playoff spot, so the 27-22 loss seemed crushing at the time.
Seattle fans probably remember that game for a play in which receiver Bobby Engram fell down while running a pass pattern late in the fourth quarter. Engram was positioning himself under a Matt Hasselbeck pass, but got his legs tangled up with back judge Greg Steed and never had a chance to catch the ball.
“The play, that’s what I call that,” Engram said Thursday afternoon. “It’s just unfortunate the way that went down. You never want to see a game decided like that. I was in disbelief. I was just so confused as to why I went down. Then I saw the ref on the ground, and … what can you do? Unfortunately, the game ended the way it did.”
That game also featured a late hit by Grant Wistrom, a St. Louis Rams defensive end who now plays for the Seahawks. As Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck ran downfield to protest the play in which Engram was tripped, Wistrom hit the quarterback from behind to add more fuel to an already fiery game.
Now the two teams will write another chapter in the budding rivalry.
“Historically we didn’t like this (Seahawks) team very much when I played for the Rams,” said Wistrom, who spent his first six seasons with St. Louis. “We kind of viewed it as a rivalry, and that’s what it has developed into. We’re two of the best teams in the NFC West right now, two teams with a lot of pride.”
While the Rams and San Francisco 49ers have a rivalry that dates all the way back to 1950, the recent St. Louis-Seattle battles have been making up for lost time.
“This is kind of a newer rivalry that I think has taken on steam and momentum,” the Rams’ Aeneas Williams said. “It’s two teams that I believe respect each other. Also, we’re now looking up at Seattle, versus in the past where teams were looking up at us.”
As Martz may recall, it wasn’t so long ago that everyone was looking down at both teams.
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