Seahawks Notebook | Josh Wilson is on target with interception

Seahawks Notebook | Josh Wilson is on target with interception
Josh Wilson apparently has played enough cornerback in the NFL to recognize a few things. He certainly did on Sunday when he stepped in...
By José Miguel Romero
Seattle Times staff reporter


SAN FRANCISCO — Josh Wilson apparently has played enough cornerback in the NFL to recognize a few things.

He certainly did on Sunday when he stepped in front of a pass intended for San Francisco wide receiver Arnaz Battle with seconds remaining in the first half and ran back an interception 75 yards for a touchdown.

The play was the big blow to the 49ers, as they fell behind 20-3 on the way to a 34-13 Seahawks win, and brought about a midgame change at quarterback.

To score, however, Wilson had to outrun his former college teammate at Maryland, San Francisco tight end Vernon Davis. Wilson just did, getting across the goal line as Davis dragged him down from behind.

"We used to have a lot of foot races," Wilson said. "That play felt like forever for me, though. I was running forever.

"He had a good angle and he just touched me. He's fast, though."

Wilson's interception was just the second of the season for the Seahawks. They had 20 last season.

"I thought it was going to be a quicker pass than it was," Wilson said. "He [quarterback J.T. O'Sullivan] kind of held it a little bit longer than I anticipated. He just stared him down a little bit too long and I got the read and he kind of threw it right to me."

Getting Engram involved

Seahawks wide receiver Bobby Engram had eight catches in his first game back from injury three games ago. He had just one over the next two games.

Engram caught three balls for 40 yards Sunday as the Seahawks looked to get him going early. The first two passes of the game from quarterback Seneca Wallace were to Engram, the first one going for 21 yards.

"Bobby's a veteran, been around a long time and he knows the offense, and that's one of the guys we kind of lean on when things are going good," Wallace said. "That's one of things that we tried to do, is get him the ball and for him to make plays for us, and he did that."

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Engram said the offense wanted to come out more aggressive. He dropped a first-quarter pass that he dived for on third down, and the Seahawks had to kick a field goal.

"Did well," Engram said. "Left some plays on the field but I was pleased that we kind of went at the defense a little bit more."

Wallace wallops 49ers

Wallace got a game ball for his 15-for-25, 222-yard performance Sunday. That's two games at Candlestick Park in which he has shined, as Wallace set a career high with 19 completions for 252 yards at San Francisco on Nov. 19, 2006, when he was playing for an injured Matt Hasselbeck.

"I felt a lot better than I did last week," Wallace said, referring to his start last week at Tampa Bay in which he threw for only 73 yards. "Body felt good. I made plays."

Wallace was playing as close to his hometown of Sacramento as he does all season. He felt the Seahawks came out motivated and armed with a new attitude.

"We had a little juice, a little life," he said.

Wallace improved to 3-3 as a starter.

"He settled down," coach Mike Holmgren said. "As the game progressed I think he got better. ... For a little while we missed on a couple of things that should have happened. And he knew that and he came over and said, 'Stay with me now.' Very mature way of handling it."

Lack of ground attack

The Seahawks gained only 39 rushing yards on 28 carries, their lowest game total of the season. Fullback Leonard Weaver said the 49ers were stacking the box, or committing eight men to stopping the run, and that had an effect.

"They just had us off balance a little bit," Wallace reasoned. "Different looks and us missing a couple of things, but it's nothing that we can't fix."

J.T.'s journey over?

O'Sullivan's journey through the NFL may have come to an end.

The Seahawks made life miserable for the well-traveled quarterback. His last pass of the day was Wilson's interception for a touchdown.

"Besides the interception," O'Sullivan said, "I felt like I was throwing the ball accurately."

At the order of new 49ers coach Mike Singletary, O'Sullivan was replaced by Shaun Hill for the afternoon. Hill may become the starter after Sunday's bye.

O'Sullivan came out of nowhere this season to become the 49ers' starting quarterback. Actually, he came out of just about everywhere. The Niners were his eighth NFL employer. He also played in NFL Europe.

Hill said his teammates "told me we still have a chance to win this thing."

He added, "So that was very encouraging."



http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seahawks/2008315205_hawknotes27.html

Wilson catches grief for being caught on runback
Cornerback chased down, scores anyway
By ART THIEL
P-I COLUMNIST

SAN FRANCISCO -- It might have been the single biggest defensive play of the season, but Josh Wilson likely took nothing but grief for it on the flight home to Seattle.

After heading to the house with an interception that had nothing ahead but green, the Seahawks' 190-pound cornerback was grabbed from behind near the goal line by San Francisco's Vernon Davis, a 250-pound tight end who came a long way across the field to catch him.

It wasn't enough to keep Wilson out of the end zone for a spirit-crushing, 75-yard touchdown and 20-6 lead on the way to a 34-13 win. But it was sufficient for teammates to seize upon the rundown to heap good-natured grief upon their teammate.

"He's going to hear about it for the rest of the year," said safety Deon Grant, grinning. Chipped in linebacker Julian Peterson, "To get caught by a guy who outweighs him by a hundred pounds ... oh, man."

Naturally, Wilson was a little, um, defensive.

"No, no, no, he didn't catch me," Wilson said, laughing. "He had a good angle, and he just touched me. But I'll give it to him, he's got some speed."

The mad sprint had a little touch of irony: Davis and Wilson were teammates at the University of Maryland, Davis a year ahead.

"We had some foot races," Wilson said of their college days. "We'll go back and forth with it, and he'll know if it was the (reverse) situation, I'd hawk him down, too."

Because of the game circumstances, the play was even more dramatic. Trailing 13-3 in the final minute of the first half, the Niners bogged down at the Seattle 29-yard line on fourth down with 4 yards to go.

A field goal for Joe Nedney seemed easy, but new Niners coach Mike Singletary opted to go for it after consulting with his offensive coordinator, Mike Martz.

"I looked into his eyes, and I knew he wanted to go for it," Singletary said. "I wanted to support what he felt."

The Seahawks, who had been burned repeatedly in their first game against San Francisco, as well as all season, on third and fourth downs, guessed that the Niners would opt for a short pass play to the outside.

The Seahawks went into a cover-2 defense with press coverage, meaning that the defenders would be up on the receivers at the line of scrimmage, giving no cushion.

"We knew they would try something quick, a quick out (route)," linebacker Julian Peterson said. "We had to make sure we didn't give anyone air. It was a good job by Josh and the coaching staff to have us aware."

Wilson was across from wide receiver Arnaz Battle, who had a 4-inch height advantage but didn't get to use it.

"The guy did a pivot, went in and came back out," Wilson said. "The quarterback kind of eyeballed him a little too long, and threw a little behind. I just made the opportunity.

"That play felt like forever for me, though. I was running forever. I was just tired."




http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/football/385117_hbar27.html

Sweet return for Wilson, Hawks
First-half interception, score launches Seattle turnaround
FRANK HUGHES; frank.hughes@thenewstribune.com
Published: October 27th, 2008 12:30 AM | Updated: October 27th, 2008 09:47 AM

SAN FRANCISCO – Seattle Seahawks cornerback Josh Wilson should have had a long touchdown last week against Tampa Bay.

He got it Sunday against San Francisco instead.

And it essentially sealed the Seahawks’ 34-13 victory over the 49ers at Candlestick Park, snapped their three-game losing streak and changed the tenor of a locker room desperate to savor the fleeting taste of success.

The game, played on a stunningly perfect afternoon in front of a crowd of 67,504, saw two long touchdown receptions by fullback Leonard Weaver, a strong defensive effort that forced two turnovers and solid play from quarterback Seneca Wallace.

But it was the interception and run by Wilson that in 10 seconds transformed this game from what should have been a tightly contested affair to a blowout.

As mesmerizing as Wilson’s second career touchdown was – a 75-yard interception return of an errant J.T. O’Sullivan pass – the way it came about was equally puzzling.

Seattle had taken a 13-0 lead on the strength of two Olindo Mare field goals and a T.J. Duckett 1-yard run. San Francisco cut the lead to 13-3, and had the opportunity to pull to 13-6 at halftime with a field goal.

But instead of allowing Joe Nedney to attempt a 47-yarder on fourth-and-4 from Seattle’s 29 with 44 seconds remaining in the second quarter, Niners coach Mike Singletary decided to go for the first down.

Singletary said he asked offensive coordinator Mike Martz if he wanted to go for it.

“I knew what his answer was going to be,” Singletary said.

Singletary approved.

But the decision was questionable for two reasons: First, the Niners could have gone into the locker room trailing by only one touchdown despite a number of costly first-half mistakes, allowing them to emerge from the break feeling good about their chances at home.

Second, even if they had gotten the first down, there may not have been enough time remaining to score a touchdown and they may have been forced to try a field goal anyway.

But Singletary, who took over for the fired Mike Nolan last Monday, has no head coaching experience and has not been in that position before. Instead of being conservative, he decided to be aggressive, possibly sending a message to his players about the franchise’s new attitude.

“I think he was trying to change the momentum of the game,” linebacker Julian Peterson said.

It certainly had that effect. But not the way Singletary envisioned.

O’Sullivan attempted to throw a short pass to Arnaz Battle, but Wilson, the nickel back in the Seahawks’ coverage scheme, played off Battle, waited for the ball to be tossed and then broke sharply. He jumped in front of Battle to grab the pass and had a running start on everybody.

“I thought it was going to be a quicker pass than it was,” Wilson said. “And he kind of held it a little longer than I anticipated. And then he just stared (Battle) down a little too long, and I got the read and he threw it to me.”

Surprisingly, as Wilson sprinted down the right sideline, 49ers tight end Vernon Davis, who weighs 250 pounds to Wilson’s 192 and who played collegiately with Wilson at Maryland, tracked him down from behind. He grabbed Wilson at the 2, but Wilson’s momentum carried him into the end zone for a 75-yard interception return.

Wilson’s teammates, never shy about ribbing the second-year player, did not pass on the opportunity in the locker room.

“Oh man, he got caught from behind by somebody who is 100 pounds more than him, and an old college teammate to boot,” Peterson said. “You know he is going to hear about that.”

Wilson defended himself by saying Davis “had a good angle on me,” though Wilson’s smile betrayed his sincerity.

This touchdown came a week after Wilson had scooped up a fumble by Tampa Bay receiver Ike Hilliard and was poised to go 96 yards for a score. But on that play, the officials did not see Hilliard fumble and blew the play dead.

This time, there was no doubt. Wilson scored his first defensive touchdown since Pee Wee football.

The score permanently altered the complexion of the game. San Francisco’s demeanor was clearly deflated while Seattle, seeking something to turn around its season, clung to the hope it presented.

“That is a big deal. A big deal,” Seattle coach Mike Holmgren said. “Those are momentum shifts in a game. We have been in games like that lately, where all of a sudden things are precarious. And then we got that big play, and that really settled things down.”

After the interception, Singletary benched O’Sullivan in favor of Shaun Hill. He sent Davis to the locker room before the end of the game because he thought the tight end was being selfish. And he watched as Weaver, nicknamed the Church Van by his teammates, rumbled for two long touchdowns off short passes to punctuate a badly needed Seahawks win.

All of that overshadowed Holmgren standing on the sideline of a place that is clamoring for his return in some capacity once he retires from the Seahawks at the end of this season.

If this was a job interview for Holmgren, it certainly was a successful one.




http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/seahawks/story/519782.html