Best Seahawk catch ever?

Published on September 1, 2011 by Tacoma News Tribune (Feed)     

The comment came out before I had a chance to really think it over. I’ve stood on sidelines at Seahawks practices since back in the 80s, but when receiver Ricardo Lockette pulled in a scoring catch over Earl Thomas in Wednesday’s practice, I had to say that it was the best catch I’d ever seen in a Seahawks practice. Before you stone me as a blasphemer, yes, I watched many practices that included Steve Largent.

Here’s how Eric described the catch in yesterday’s post: ” … Lockette deserves mention because of a spectacular, circus-catch he made on a deep ball against double coverage. With Brandon Browner and Earl Thomas closing in, Lockette went up high and somehow snatched a ball out of the air that was first deflected by Thomas, trapping it on Thomas’ shoulder as he fell to the ground.”

The thing that I thought made it even better was that he had to catch the ball “around” Thomas, who was between Lockette and the ball, bringing to mind the great Largent grab when he had Lester Hayes in his face and he reached around Hayes’ back to pull it in. Thomas kept scrapping to knock it away, but Lockette kept it extended with one hand to keep it from him. Truly spectacular.

As Eric pointed out, Lockette dropped his next pass, and he is raw in some other aspects of his job. But this was a spectacular effort, and it’s an example of why it is so fun to watch some of the undrafted free agents and young guys in training camp and in preseason games — they’re going at it like every play may be their last.

One of the veteran guys that I always thought had that kind of commitment to go after passes, even in drills, was tight end John Carlson — a very high-effort guy. It was interesting, then, to hear that the shoulder injury that will sideline him for the season was suffered when he dove for a catch in practice. Hmmm. Is that effort going to cost him a season? I used to kid at times about Joey Galloway, that I’d never seen him “lay out” to go get a ball. For a couple years the Hawks had an ad painted onto the side of a building near the Kingdome that showed Galloway totally horizontal for a ball. I mentioned to someone in the organization that I surely never viewed that in reality. I was told that they actually took a picture of him reaching up for a ball when he was running and laid it down sideways so it looked like he was diving for it as the model for the painting. Hilarious. But maybe that’s part of the reason he was able to stay in the league for 16 years.

via Best Seahawk catch ever | Seahawks Insider.

Tags: 80s, Blasphemer, Brandon Browner, Double Coverage, Earl Thomas, High Effort, Hmmm, Joey Galloway, John Carlson, Lester Hayes, Preseason Games, Shoulder Injury, Sideline, Sidelines, Spectacular Effort, Steve Largent, Tight End, training camp, Undrafted Free Agents, Young Guys