July 15, 2025 • 32 mins
In honor of the Seahawks' upcoming 50th season, Seahawks Legend Matt Hasselbeck was joined by Jen Mueller as they discuss some of his most memorable moments during his Seahawks tenure including Pete Carroll's first year, the arrival of Marshawn Lynch and the Beastquake game. Today's show: First year of Pete Carroll – (1:04), tough year in 2010 with transactions and injuries – (4:00), Pete’s motivation leading into that game– (5:30), Pete Carroll coaching points that Matt uses today (6:20), Matt breaks Pete’s glasses (7:30), Marshawn Lynch arrives in Seattle (8:17), Uncle Lee story – (13:00), NFC West title game – (14:30), Matt’s stat line from the Beastquake game (17:47), Matt’s first interception story – (19:18), the Beastquake run (21:27), greatest run in NFL history (25:16) and kids on the field and the Beastquake ball (27:25)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Seahawks Stories, fiftieth season edition, presented by Emerald
City Athletics. We're broadcasting from the Seahawks Podcast Studio, presented
by Sony, an official partner of the Seattle Seahawks. It
is the fiftieth season of the Seattle Seahawks. We are
taking you inside the locker room, or maybe just inside
the studio to uncover some of the.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Stories you might not have heard before.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Today it is Matt Hasselbeck who joins us to reveal
a few more stories.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I can guarantee you haven't heard before. But we well tell
stories that I haven't heard. How's that all right?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I haven't It'll be a surprise to all of us.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Then I will tell you that the biggest story we
are going to hear is the story of the Beast Quake.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Now, you guys know what. You have seen it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You have heard the call from Steve Rabel so many
times before. It is the sixty seven yard run that
literally created an earthquake in Seattle. Marshaun Lynch breaks nine tackle.
Seattle goes on to win the playoff game against the Safe.
But there's a little bit more to this story. If
we back that up to the beginning of the year,
Matt because that was the first year of Pete Carroll
(01:09):
and what I remember is a lot of transactions and
a lot of just moving pieces all year long.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, I don't think that's unusual with a new head
coach that come in. And I think we set an
NFL record that year for In fact, I made a joke.
I made name tags up and put them on everybody.
I think Pete got mad at me for that. It
was a rule to violation for being negative. And it
was like a passive aggressive complain. You know, you say,
(01:39):
gooboute to a lot of friends and it's a new team,
and we'd work out a guy on Wednesday, like we'd
be practicing down here. It'd work out a guy like
Brandon Stokely down there with a bunch of scouts and
he'd literally like be starting for us that week. Tyler
Plumbus during the year, Marshawn during the year. Like it
just was like we never had a set roster. We
never had a set It was like a lot of
(02:00):
foundation building, you know, a lot of adversity. But obviously
they knew what they were doing. But it was tough
as a player, It was.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Tough well, and you go from Mike culmgrin to a
completely different style of coach in Pete Carroll. At that
point in your career, you certainly had enough years under
your belt where you had seen a lot. Is that
easy or harder after having homegrown?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
They were very different. They were very different, but I
would say they were pretty similar in the fact that
they both kind of had this like kind of this
forty nine ers Bill Walsh undertone of what they were like.
Pete Carroll, I think would say that Bud Grant influenced
him the most. Maybe John Wooden and Bud Bud Grant,
those two guys, But no, I think they were pretty
(02:43):
similar in you know, obviously offense and defense. I think
what was different is I was turning thirty five that year.
We were getting a college head coach. You know. He
had us like tap in all in before every practice,
like hit the ceilings, string coaches right down if you
did or you didn't. We're doing bag drills. We're doing
And it was a lot of different like raw ra stuff.
I literally wanted to not like him as a coach,
(03:05):
like I wanted to. I love Pete as a coach.
I thought he did a great job. I thought he
did a great job, but the transactions were tough. I mean,
it's so there's a reason why continuity, I think in
any business is helpful. But I think what he also
brought was like this level of excellence in competing in
everything that we do, no matter what. That was awesome
(03:27):
and that was I mean, I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It is not the easiest year in terms of wins
and losses, and yet it goes down to the final
game of the season and I I'm curious. Look, a
win is a win, and making the playoffs is making
the playoffs. There are certainly something validating when you think
about the hardships of that year and all of the pieces.
(03:52):
How much did you hear the outside noise of if
you guys don't deserve to be there?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh a lot, I mean, and Pete embraced it. It
was a hard year, though, I mean the trans that
all the transactions was a thing. Injuries were a thing.
I broke my left wrist. Our starting center Chris Spencer
broke his right thumb. We would practice. He would have
a cast on. I would have a cast on. We
wouldn't snap. I would just hold the ball and I
just like said hut, and I would just drop back
(04:16):
and then for games we would cut our casts off
and put on like a soft rap with like athletic
tape and a splint and play the games. Like it
was brutal. I mean it was brutal. Max Hunger eventually
was a great player. Was so young and new in
the league. They couldn't play him with his healthy hands
at center. Like we were just we were just not
ready to be a team that had to go play
(04:37):
every Sunday. But like we had a schedule, we had
to play the games. And then even for me personally,
Pete's whole thing was like it's all about the ball.
It's all about the ball. Don't turn the ball over.
And for whatever reason, like you know, it's like when
I'm golfing and someone says, hey, don't leave it short,
like I leave it short. Okay, I don't know if
anyone can relate that to me. And so he's like,
don't turn it over, don't turn it over, like I
was turning the ball over more than ever bumbles, interceptions
(04:59):
and and anyway, like eventually the assistant coach is Jedfish
was my quarterbacks coach. He said something to me that
was like a game changer, and I think it gets
started to click. I think like Earl Thomas was young,
Cam Chancellor was young. I think like guys like Lawyer
Malloy rubbed off on them, Jedy Gray rubbed off on them.
(05:20):
Like eventually we kind of got there. But it was
struggle bus for sure.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It was an interesting year.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Seven and nine. You know, we're hosting a playoff game.
The world champs are coming to Seattle, South Alaska. This
isn't right, but Pete did an amazing job of making
us feel like you're not seven and nine. They say
you're seven to nine, like they can't do maths. You're
not seven and nine. They're idiots. Were zero and zero, Okay,
we're zero and zero. And the Saints, oh they're world champs.
No they're not. They were world champs last year. They're
(05:49):
zero and zero. Just like you. You're zero and zero. Where's zero?
We're the same, you know. And that was how he
got us to think we're competing. And he would do
crazy things. He'd be like, all right, one on one pass,
rush to whoever wins, you get to start this week.
I remember this, d Lineman. We won the game and
like this one on one O line D line real
he O line D line drill. He won the one
(06:09):
on one competition for the day, Like you get to
start against Tampa. He wasn't on the team. He was
on the practice squad. We couldn't even We had to
like cut somebody to bring him up to get him
playing time. It was like it was wild. It was wild,
but it was great.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
How many of Pete's strategies do you use?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
All of them? All of them? I am like literally
like embarrassed how much Pete carroll little coaching points I
use as a high school coach. It's it's kind of funny.
But he made it very simple. I think it was
John Madden who said, if you have a bunch of rules,
you know like your players are gonna break them all
or whatever, just like have the rules that you need
to have. And Pete was very simply at three rules
(06:48):
and kind of branch off from there, but like I
could still recite them today. He was He was a
great communicator, and he brought a lot of people with
him that understood how to like kind of Pete didn't
need to be there for me to know what Pete
would say to a question whether it was strength coaches
or position coaches or whatever. He nailed that part of it.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Pete was the CEO.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, but he got dirty with you. I mean he's
playing catch. I mean the day he told me that
we were gonna draft Charlie Whiteters, he took me out.
We played hoops, you know, and I'm in flip flops
and I think maybe he was too, And we're playing
one on one hoops, you know, the day that Charlie arrives.
Like me and Charlie are out there playing catch with
Pete and he's trying to throw it harder than both
of us. And you know, so he's like nobody that
(07:31):
I've ever known. He's He's really dynamic.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Did you ever worry about hurting Pete in a game
of catch?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yes, in fact, he has a crooked finger. Number one,
But number two, I did. I was so pissed off
of him, I like really mad at him one time,
and I threw the ball as hard as I could
and I broke his glasses. I kind of like hit
him in the face. He wore gloves and hit him
in the face, and like he acted like he was hurt,
and he acted like it was, uh, you know, I
broke his glasses. Well, his glasses didn't break. They're the
(07:56):
kind of like connect and they're like magnetic. I've never
worn glasses, so I didn't know. But I felt sort
of bad, not that bad, but a little bit bad.
But yeah, he but he's great, you know what I mean,
Like he really was great. But at the same time,
I will still say, defensive guys see things a little
differently than offensive guys. But he was helpful though.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Okay, so what did you see when Marshawn Lynch arrived
in the locker room?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I impressions, Well, you know, I just remember the first
team meeting. You know, Pete Carroll again, Like he came
in he was like Marshawn. So he did this thing
where he would introduce every new player. We had a
lot of transactions. He'd introduce him and he played a
joke on the player. And I don't want to give
away his joke necessarily, but but basically what I thought
the great part of it was is he said Marshaan
(08:43):
and Marshawn had had like a really tough career. I mean,
he was a disaster of being honest with all kinds
of problems and he came in. He was like, Marshawn,
I have wanted to coach you since you were at
Oakland Tech. I wanted you at SC like and I
am so glad to be here in the NFL because
I can go get who I want to get. You
(09:04):
are everything I'm looking for, you know, blah blah. I
don't want you to be anybody besides Marshawn, You just be.
You be the kid that I fell in love with
at Oakland Tech. And I think for Marshawn that was
like life breathing to him, you know. And I don't know.
I think it was a good start. And you know,
we played Chicago that week and we weren't a good team.
(09:25):
They were. We played pretty awesome. Marshawn rushed for like
sixty yards, but they were a great sixty yards, and
you know, it wasn't really about him. He was learning.
I think that one of the reasons that Marshawn was
successful is that our starting running back at the time
was justin Forcet, who went to cal with Marshaw and
(09:45):
they think he was in his wedding and the other
guy was shirm Smith. Terms with the running backs coach
justin foresaid and shirm Smith are two of the most humble,
most amazing men that I've ever known. Having Marshawn surrounded
by those two guys with Pete Carroll's kind of like
directive put him on a path to be successful. And
there were other things too, but it worked and obviously
(10:07):
Marshaun's been super successful since. So I just think it
was great Mike Robinson as well, Like there was just
like a it was a great room. People talk about
quarterback room a lot, running back room matters as well.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
When you watch Marshawn run, like you know that some
of that is innate, right, Like you just can't teach
some of that, some of the grit and some of
just that that contact balance that he had to know.
But how much did you watch him learn the game
or was it all just natural skill? Uh?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
You know, truthfully, he was probably in the front row
asleep a little bit early on.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Okay, so it was a natural.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
But I think what the coaches did a really good
job of is they gave him a small menu to start.
It's hard coming in, like you missed training camp, Otia's
all that stuff. He came in in October and so
we basically his his like menu was inside zone, outside zone,
and then he loved power and that was kind of thing.
And you know, it was a lot of transition, Like
(11:02):
we had an O line coach. We had the best
zone scheme O line coach that's ever lived in Alex Gibbs.
Starting the season, he retires like Thursday before.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Week one, say he didn't even make it to the season.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
So there was a lot of stuff like kind of like,
you know, we were not on the moving walkway, so
to speak, like we were sort of walking the wrong
way on the moving walkway that were like the wind
was not at our backs. But Marshawn I think the
coaches did a good job of like giving him like
you know what he could handle. He wasn't in the
(11:35):
passing game a lot, Like there were a lot of
different things that way. We had Leon Washington, we had
justin but he definitely was our first and second down.
He was the hammer, not the nail kind of guy.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I remember sitting with him at his locker one day,
and it's always nerve wracking for me when guys like
that come in during the middle of the year because
I'm counting on training camp to get to know, you guys,
just like you're counting on training camp to get to
know everybody else. And Marshawn was quiet and he had grills, right,
so he had just this mouthful. His smile was awesome
(12:08):
and he I was sitting there and he started asking
me what my first impressions of him were. And it
was really interesting because you could tell how his time
in Buffalo had influenced him right, and you could tell
just to what you were saying that to feel loved
for who you are was a new thing for him.
(12:30):
And that conversation progressed, and you know, he asked if
if I would ever be afraid to do an interview
with him.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I'm like, no, I'm not afraid to do an interview.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
And we started talking about like college and you know,
like he goes, I know people don't think I paid
attention in school. I actually did pay attention in school,
you know, like I can do all those things. And
it was fascinating because the what people see on the
field is not always the way that he was in
the locker room. I found him to be awesome.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Oh, no doubt. I don't think anyone would say otherwise. Well,
one thing that was interesting is Pete. Carroll had hired
Marshawn's uncle, Uncle Lee to work here at the building,
you know.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
I was usually I felt like I was usually like
the first guy to work one of them, if not
the first player. And but like the people who work
in the building are here even before the players, you know.
And I remember the first time I came in, there
was like a like a body laying in front of
like Marshawn's locker, and I'm like, who is this? Well, anyway,
(13:32):
long story short, Uncle Lee had to be at work early,
and Marshawn was his ride. And so like Marshawn for
the rest of that season that I remember, he would
beat me to work every day because he had to
be there with Uncle Lee. And Uncle Lee had like
you know, like players have shorter hours than like some
of the people that work here, and Uncle Lee was
had late hours, and so like Marshawn was his ride home,
and like, and I think to this, like uncle Lee
(13:54):
became like family to all of us, and correct me
if I'm wrong. I think I think he still works here.
It's so great, He's so great, But I just like
think whatever your image of Marshawn might have been because
he plays it up pretty good. No, he was. He's
a family first, team first kind of guy and unique
(14:14):
and different and whatever, but but no, he was. He
was all in. He was all in and when it
came to goal line, shortyardage, first down, second down, that
was his menu that year and he rocked it. He
did great.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So before we get to the beast quake, we have
to win the game that Charlie Whitehurst is quarterbacking. This
is kind of an interesting feeling I would imagine for you, right,
I know that you were battling injuries that year, but
to see your backup, to know that you have to
cheer for your backup and that this is winner take
all essentially, right, Yeah, do you remember how you like
(14:51):
talked to Charlie before that game or what you were feeling.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, listen, I love Charlie and I was always rooting
for him. I didn't necessarily want us to trade away
the draft pick that could have gotten us Eric Decker,
you know, instead of him, Like you know what I mean, Like,
maybe that was true, but but no, I was rooting
for him. But yeah, I was mad. I was mad
that he started that game. Like I said, I was
battling injury at all kinds of stuff I had, like
(15:15):
basically like ripped a glute muscle scoring a touchdown in
Tampa the week before. That injury was really an injury
I had sustained against Carolina or a team that color,
you know, maybe Carolina, Detroit one of I think it
was maybe Detroit, somebody at home the week before in
pregame and I was just like hanging on and made
it through that game. And but anyway, I was angry
(15:37):
at a broken wrist, like all these different things going on.
And Pete was like, we're gonna sit you. We got
some plays we want to run that we can only
do with Charlie's in there, and we're gonna sit you.
And he said to me, we're gonna let you come
in in the bottom of the night like Kirk Gibson
and be the hero if Charlie can't get it done.
And like, okay, Like I guess that made sense, I'll say.
(16:00):
In that moment, though, Pete had a special relationship with
this kid, Jake Olsen was his name, who lost his sight.
He was a young kid, not a kid anymore, and
he was with us the night that Pete told us
told me build the quarterbacks, Charlie's gonna start, and so
like I was angry because I had done everything I
(16:21):
could to get back. I really felt like I could go,
but I was there with Jake. It's like diehard USC
fan that loved Pete. And there was a lot of
USC people, a lot of people that weren't on our
team around our team that year, which is also an
adjustment from the Mike Hongrean years. But I think just
being around that kid that night, for me personally, gave
me a little bit more of a perspective and a
(16:42):
joy that like, like, dude, if you even for a nanosecond,
feel like you can feel sorry for yourself right now?
Like like no, like absolutely not. And I actually had
like sort of like a picture that Jake gave me
as a thank you for like hanging out or whatever
in my locker really the rest of my NFL career,
(17:06):
and it was just a picture of him.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So you turn into a great teammate. Not you shouldn't
they turn into all of the sudden teammate all of
us sad sorry about that. You were always a great teammate.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
No, it was good. It was a good Charlie played great,
and we it was a cool atmosphere. It felt like
it felt like kind of we all said like, wow,
that felt like a playoff game. Until we had the
beast Quake game. We're like, oh, shoot, no, no, no,
that's what a playoff game feels like. Because that atmosphere
was like otherworldly. I think there was a chip on
everybody's shoulder, fans especially, you know, fans included. But no,
(17:43):
that was a special night. It was cool.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Well in that playoff game, though, the week of rest
must have done some good, because you go twenty two
for thirty five two hundred and seventy two yards for
touchdowns in the playoff game.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I play a little bit better with a chip on
my shoulder, and I was angry. It wasn't like a
bitter kind of angry. It was more of like there
was a burning fire inside. Even that week in practice,
Pete came to the quarterbacks and he was like, listen,
he said to me. He's like, you're going to start,
but I'm not letting the Saints know. This is back
before social media was like everywhere, and we were waiting
(18:20):
until Sean Payton and the Saints got on their airplane
to fly to Seattle. That's when he announced to our
local media who the starter was. So to do that
we were sharing reps in practice for like the media,
like we were doing all that kind of stuff, even
for the players on the team. So I was like,
you're robin reps. I mean I guys like Gus Bradley
(18:41):
coming up and Dan Quinn coming up to me. I
mean like, hey, you know, I want to do it
this way, you know, just just you know, like you know,
with you like, but I had a you know, I
was hot. And we were practicing with crowd noise every
day for our defense because it's hard on the defense
to have our crowd noise, and so like it was
there was an intensity and like I think I might
even worn earplugs that week, Like do not talk to me.
(19:03):
I Am just gonna be all about the football. Don't
come over like with your smile, chewing all your gum
like looking at me like that, like no, you're not
my friend, Like that line that Bridge has been like
I'm here to win games and like that, if you're
here to do that too, then good where we can
get along. And so we go into that game. The
very first pass that I throw on the game. It's
(19:23):
like this sprint out. The motion gets timed up wrong,
the ball gets tipped, it gets intercepted, and I'm like,
all right, that's it. Like he's been dying not to
play me anyway, and I'm like, I'm gonna just take
it like a man. I'm gonna just come over there,
take the benching, and I walk right over to Pete,
the kind of jog right in front of him, like
(19:43):
when Mike Homegroom is mad at me. I would come
off like the thirty yard line avoid hide, not looking
at you. You're not looking at me, you can't see you.
I went right past Pete and just fully expecting him
to say, Hey, my whole thing is it's all about
the ball. You can't turn the ball over. You turn
the ball over, you can't play. I go right by
him and he doesn't say that. He basically was like
with a smile on his face, chewing gum. He was like, hey,
(20:07):
shake that off, something like shake that off. We need
you today, and it was just like whoa like didn't
expect it again, he was such a dynamic leader and motivator,
just didn't expect it. And I think from that moment on,
I was like, man, screw it, like, cut it freaking loose.
Be an artist, not a blacksmith. And like basically what
(20:31):
Jed Fish had told me earlier in the year about
like you're playing defensive and that's why you're turning the
ball over, Like that's why you're leaving your putt short.
He basically said to me, like, I see you drive
like I'm the four h five. You drive like you're
from Boston. You drive like kind of aggressive, and it's
sort of the safest way to drive. You don't drive
like someone at Driver's at ten and two, you know, like,
oh no, I'm afraid I'm gonna get in on an accident.
(20:53):
You cut it loose. And so after that first pass,
that first interception, I had this mindset was like, screw it,
cut it loose, have fun, like no regrets. And I
think that's a little bit how the rest of the
game went, certainly not how it started.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Okay, but you get to the point where it's you're
gonna hand the ball to Marshaan. Now we know the
end result of that play, right, We know that it
covered the entire length of the field. I believe that
was a second and ten play call. What was that
call supposed to result in? How many yards were you
supposed to get on that play?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
You said it was second and ten. I had no idea,
Like I did not know that I was playing the clock.
So we were in four minute offense, you know. So
like even going into the game, like we felt disrespected, right,
even the coaches when they were coaching the game plan
by accident, they were disrespectful. Like Jeremy Bates, the offensive coordinator,
comes in, He's like, listen, this team is so much
(21:51):
better than us. So we're gonna have to do smoking mirrors,
you know. You know, John Carlson, we got a way
we can, like, you know, get your kind of sneaky guy.
No one notices you sometimes we can get you like,
you know, like all these different things, stokely. No one
thinks you're fast, you know, the big Mike Williams. No
one thinks you're fast, like all these things. So when
we got to four minute, which is what we call
(22:13):
a situation when we're playing the clock not the scoreboard,
it was almost just like an afterthought. We had not
really talked about it. Now. Marshawn on the sidelines was
always asking for the same play he wanted power, and
we were trying to be a zone team. But a
great thing that all zone teams do is they mix
in a little bit of power. But when you don't
(22:34):
do power a lot, you're usually not good at it,
you know. And so basically there's some coaching points that
you give each each person. And my coaching point for Marshawn,
you know, I call the play that's just whatever the
formation is, seventeen power on one on one, ready break.
(22:54):
I would always say to Marshawn, hit it downhill. I'm
gonna give you vision of the week side a gap,
so meaning like odds go to the left, evens go
to the right, So seventeen we're going to the left.
But I'm gonna give you vision of basically the two
hole to the right in between the center and the guard. Well,
we don't block the play properly. Literally, almost no one
(23:17):
does their job right. But there's a saying in offensive
line rooms, and I think this is kind of true
for a lot of professions. If we're all wrong, together,
we're right, and so like do something full speed, like
give it all you got, and we did. Now I
mix up my like my play fake after sometimes I'll bootleg.
(23:38):
Sometimes I'll set to pass whatever I set to pass
that on that play, and had like a pretty good
view of the start of it, but it turned into
something I could have never imagined.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
What did it feel like as you heard, because you
couldn't have seen everything right.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Well because I set to pass, you know, like you know,
like basically so like when you boot away, like some
coaches would say, like drive for five like five hard steps,
not looking at the play like you know, let you know,
if you want a ticket, sit in the stands kind
of thing. If you set to pass, like you hand
it off, you kind of like, you know, hunch over
a little bit like your boomeras I sent or Steve
de Berg or something like that, and then you set
(24:19):
up and kind of like look straight down the middle
of the field. So yeah, so like I saw him,
you know whatever, like go and literally in four minute,
like some of the coaching points everyone has one like
for the running backs, two hands on the ball, don't
run out of bounce. For wide receivers, oh line like
hey we can't have a penalty and stop the clock
or quarterback your playfake is no longer really that important.
(24:42):
Follow the ball, But like to think that I was
going to be anywhere near the ball is sort of like,
you know, that's not gonna happen. Honestly, the best thing
that happened on that play is probably that I don't
get called for an illegal block in the back because
I was so excited just running down there, and like
I had like a club on my left hand and
I put it out and then the one dude kind
of falls and it was, you know, could have taken
(25:04):
away the best run in NFL history. Luckily luckily it didn't.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Okay, so where does that play call again?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
We know what the result was, Where does that play
call fall on? Like your top three plays or plays
that you ever get.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I mean, it's the greatest run in NFL history, no doubt,
but there's nothing special about the play. Like every play
every team in the NFL runs seventeen power. I mean
I coach high school football. We probably called power left
seventeen times a game, and we call it ten times
a game, I bet, you know. So, like, it's nothing
special about the play and we blocked it wrong. It
was just like this collective guys blocking downfield. Offensive linemen,
(25:44):
defensive lineman, Chris Spencer, Tyler Columbus wide receivers, Like it
was special like that, and and again like we weren't
necessarily trying to score. We're trying to run out the clock.
There's less than four minutes ago. We're trying not to
give the ball back. We have a four point lead.
We don't want to give the ball back to Drew
Brees and company. And I remember we score in like
(26:05):
we're all huddled up like kind of again as players,
and I like look up and I never really ever
looked up to like where my family was sitting, like ever,
but I look up and I see like literally like
where my kids are sitting, my parents, my mom, and
my wife's sitting and like and I'm basically just like
I put my hands out, like can you freaking believe this?
Like we did it? Like I know Pete was saying
(26:27):
we're O and O and there oh and O, but like,
but really, did you think this was gonna happen? It
was epic? It was absolutely, I mean it was epic.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
It was pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And you know what would be helpful is if you
had the Sony one thousand XM five noise canceling headphones
for that game, because every game this season. You can
feel every play, every hit, every moment with the official
headphones of the Seattle Seahawks with premium noise cancelation. You
were in the zone, no distractions, just pure football. Whether
you were in your living room or on the go,
you will never miss a beat with Sony had fun else.
(27:01):
That turned out to be the last game that you
played for the Seahawks.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Home game, home game. We played one more game. It
is also that was the last home game.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It also feels to me like after the way two
thousand and four ended or two thousand and three, like
when you think about the disappointing finishes that you have
had that you had previously shared, that maybe that was
some extra gratification or validation.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
It was incredible, and I would just say, like the
end of the game, game's over. My kids had never
once ever been on the field after like when like
I was still on the field, Like we kind of
had a family rule, like after the game's over, everybody's
gone home or like whatever, like if we won, sure
we'll come out to the field and we'll play catch
er whatever before we go Y Krispy Kreme for a
(27:49):
donut or somewhere like that. Something completely unhealthy. So we
had kind of had that family rule, but never had
my kids ever been on the field. But my roommate, well,
one of my teammates, his wife must have been like,
you don't know, listening to talk radio or something, she
was like, this might be his last game as a
(28:09):
Seahawk or last game here at what was then Quest Field.
And so she finds a police officer takes my kids
down to the field and gets them on the field.
And so there was a special moment like I'm there
and uh, postgame interviews whatever, like all the stuff, and
then we're walking off and I, you know, I don't
(28:30):
want to lose my kids, you know, And I got
Henry on my shoulders. I give the football to my daughter,
my other daughter, you know, Annabelle, like she's holding on
to her, and we walk off, and you know, I
got these amazing rod Mark Quirky Truan photos of us
walking off the field for what was I didn't know
at the time was my last game here as the
(28:53):
Seahawks quarterback. So it's a it's a memory that I mean,
it's like a movie for me. It was great what.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Happened to the football?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah, so I didn't know this at the time, but
like we mentioned, Marshawn scores, he does this celebration that
he got fined for. Me and Ben Obomano pick up
the ball and we take it over to the equipment
managers and we're like, hey, that was the greatest running
NFL history. Save this ball for Marshawn, which they do,
no big deal. Well whatever, John Carlson recovers an on
(29:23):
side kick, you know, and we go back into the
game and we're just gonna take a knee. Well, Marshawn,
being classic Marshawn, he takes that football, gives it to
the official and says, hey, I want to close out
the game with this football. Well, we're not running anymore plays,
we're just taking a knee. So we take a knee,
taking knee whatever. Marshawn bolts to the locker room. That
(29:45):
was back when he didn't want to talk to anybody,
and so he gets out of there. Next thing, I know,
I got the ball. Everyone's rushing the field. I'm doing
an interview with like Alex flanagain or someone. My kids
are there. I'm like, I give the ball to my
daughter Mallory. Anyway, that's the ball. It's in all the pictures.
But years later NFL films they trying to track down
(30:05):
this ball and they come to me and they were like, oh,
we're trying to track down the ball and I'm like, well,
what do you mean. I saved it and gave it
to the equipment managers from Marshawn and they were like no, no, no,
And they tell me how Marshan put the ball back
in the game, and I was like, why would he
do that. I'm like, if that's true, then that ball
is in my daughter's room. And so they were like,
oh my gosh, you got to give the ball back
(30:25):
to him. I'm like, well yeah, but like you know
what we're saying, like that ball's been played with, it's
been in my pool, my dog's probably had it in
his mouth. Like it's like you know what I mean,
it's like the movie sand Lot at this point, you know.
So I mean maybe that's maybe that makes it a
little more Marshan anyway, but we'll see.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Did he get the ball back?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
You know what, I'd need to cause we moved around
a lot, like we have a lot of stuff in storage.
So by the time I heard that story from NFL films.
I was at the end of my career about forty
years old, and all my stuff it's like in boxes
and it's in storage. Sorry, it's in storage, so like
it's there somewhere. But we need to like we need
(31:08):
like an investigative like authenticator to be like, oh, yeah,
here's the referees number or the d you know whatever
however you do that. But yeah, if that's the if
that's what happened, then yeah, I mean, there you go.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
It's like an unsolved mystery that we might be able
to solve in the fiftieth season of the season.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Maybe the hundredth season when I'm gone.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Maybe he's not going to give up that football.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
No, yeah, I mean you can have it. It's it's
I would like to donate it to like wherever, the
Hall of Fame or whoever.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Okay, we'll see if we can make that happen.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
But for now, you know the story behind the Beast
Quake run. Thank you to Matt Hasselback. Thank you for
joining us on another episode of Seahawks Story's fiftieth season edition.
This is Seahawks Stories, fiftieth season edition, presented by Emerald
City Athletics. We're broadcasting from the Seahawks Podcast Studio, presented
by Sony, an official partner of the Seattle Seahawks. It
is the fiftieth season of the Seattle Seahawks. We are
taking you inside the locker room, or maybe just inside
the studio to uncover some of the.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Stories you might not have heard before.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Today it is Matt Hasselbeck who joins us to reveal
a few more stories.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I can guarantee you haven't heard before. But we well tell
stories that I haven't heard. How's that all right?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I haven't It'll be a surprise to all of us.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Then I will tell you that the biggest story we
are going to hear is the story of the Beast Quake.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Now, you guys know what. You have seen it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You have heard the call from Steve Rabel so many
times before. It is the sixty seven yard run that
literally created an earthquake in Seattle. Marshaun Lynch breaks nine tackle.
Seattle goes on to win the playoff game against the Safe.
But there's a little bit more to this story. If
we back that up to the beginning of the year,
Matt because that was the first year of Pete Carroll
(01:09):
and what I remember is a lot of transactions and
a lot of just moving pieces all year long.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, I don't think that's unusual with a new head
coach that come in. And I think we set an
NFL record that year for In fact, I made a joke.
I made name tags up and put them on everybody.
I think Pete got mad at me for that. It
was a rule to violation for being negative. And it
was like a passive aggressive complain. You know, you say,
(01:39):
gooboute to a lot of friends and it's a new team,
and we'd work out a guy on Wednesday, like we'd
be practicing down here. It'd work out a guy like
Brandon Stokely down there with a bunch of scouts and
he'd literally like be starting for us that week. Tyler
Plumbus during the year, Marshawn during the year. Like it
just was like we never had a set roster. We
never had a set It was like a lot of
(02:00):
foundation building, you know, a lot of adversity. But obviously
they knew what they were doing. But it was tough
as a player, It was.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Tough well, and you go from Mike culmgrin to a
completely different style of coach in Pete Carroll. At that
point in your career, you certainly had enough years under
your belt where you had seen a lot. Is that
easy or harder after having homegrown?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
They were very different. They were very different, but I
would say they were pretty similar in the fact that
they both kind of had this like kind of this
forty nine ers Bill Walsh undertone of what they were like.
Pete Carroll, I think would say that Bud Grant influenced
him the most. Maybe John Wooden and Bud Bud Grant,
those two guys, But no, I think they were pretty
(02:43):
similar in you know, obviously offense and defense. I think
what was different is I was turning thirty five that year.
We were getting a college head coach. You know. He
had us like tap in all in before every practice,
like hit the ceilings, string coaches right down if you
did or you didn't. We're doing bag drills. We're doing
And it was a lot of different like raw ra stuff.
I literally wanted to not like him as a coach,
(03:05):
like I wanted to. I love Pete as a coach.
I thought he did a great job. I thought he
did a great job, but the transactions were tough. I mean,
it's so there's a reason why continuity, I think in
any business is helpful. But I think what he also
brought was like this level of excellence in competing in
everything that we do, no matter what. That was awesome
(03:27):
and that was I mean, I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It is not the easiest year in terms of wins
and losses, and yet it goes down to the final
game of the season and I I'm curious. Look, a
win is a win, and making the playoffs is making
the playoffs. There are certainly something validating when you think
about the hardships of that year and all of the pieces.
(03:52):
How much did you hear the outside noise of if
you guys don't deserve to be there?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh a lot, I mean, and Pete embraced it. It
was a hard year, though, I mean the trans that
all the transactions was a thing. Injuries were a thing.
I broke my left wrist. Our starting center Chris Spencer
broke his right thumb. We would practice. He would have
a cast on. I would have a cast on. We
wouldn't snap. I would just hold the ball and I
just like said hut, and I would just drop back
(04:16):
and then for games we would cut our casts off
and put on like a soft rap with like athletic
tape and a splint and play the games. Like it
was brutal. I mean it was brutal. Max Hunger eventually
was a great player. Was so young and new in
the league. They couldn't play him with his healthy hands
at center. Like we were just we were just not
ready to be a team that had to go play
(04:37):
every Sunday. But like we had a schedule, we had
to play the games. And then even for me personally,
Pete's whole thing was like it's all about the ball.
It's all about the ball. Don't turn the ball over.
And for whatever reason, like you know, it's like when
I'm golfing and someone says, hey, don't leave it short,
like I leave it short. Okay, I don't know if
anyone can relate that to me. And so he's like,
don't turn it over, don't turn it over, like I
was turning the ball over more than ever bumbles, interceptions
(04:59):
and and anyway, like eventually the assistant coach is Jedfish
was my quarterbacks coach. He said something to me that
was like a game changer, and I think it gets
started to click. I think like Earl Thomas was young,
Cam Chancellor was young. I think like guys like Lawyer
Malloy rubbed off on them, Jedy Gray rubbed off on them.
(05:20):
Like eventually we kind of got there. But it was
struggle bus for sure.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It was an interesting year.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Seven and nine. You know, we're hosting a playoff game.
The world champs are coming to Seattle, South Alaska. This
isn't right, but Pete did an amazing job of making
us feel like you're not seven and nine. They say
you're seven to nine, like they can't do maths. You're
not seven and nine. They're idiots. Were zero and zero, Okay,
we're zero and zero. And the Saints, oh they're world champs.
No they're not. They were world champs last year. They're
(05:49):
zero and zero. Just like you. You're zero and zero. Where's zero?
We're the same, you know. And that was how he
got us to think we're competing. And he would do
crazy things. He'd be like, all right, one on one pass,
rush to whoever wins, you get to start this week.
I remember this, d Lineman. We won the game and
like this one on one O line D line real
he O line D line drill. He won the one
(06:09):
on one competition for the day, Like you get to
start against Tampa. He wasn't on the team. He was
on the practice squad. We couldn't even We had to
like cut somebody to bring him up to get him
playing time. It was like it was wild. It was wild,
but it was great.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
How many of Pete's strategies do you use?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
All of them? All of them? I am like literally
like embarrassed how much Pete carroll little coaching points I
use as a high school coach. It's it's kind of funny.
But he made it very simple. I think it was
John Madden who said, if you have a bunch of rules,
you know like your players are gonna break them all
or whatever, just like have the rules that you need
to have. And Pete was very simply at three rules
(06:48):
and kind of branch off from there, but like I
could still recite them today. He was He was a
great communicator, and he brought a lot of people with
him that understood how to like kind of Pete didn't
need to be there for me to know what Pete
would say to a question whether it was strength coaches
or position coaches or whatever. He nailed that part of it.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Pete was the CEO.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, but he got dirty with you. I mean he's
playing catch. I mean the day he told me that
we were gonna draft Charlie Whiteters, he took me out.
We played hoops, you know, and I'm in flip flops
and I think maybe he was too, And we're playing
one on one hoops, you know, the day that Charlie arrives.
Like me and Charlie are out there playing catch with
Pete and he's trying to throw it harder than both
of us. And you know, so he's like nobody that
(07:31):
I've ever known. He's He's really dynamic.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Did you ever worry about hurting Pete in a game
of catch?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yes, in fact, he has a crooked finger. Number one,
But number two, I did. I was so pissed off
of him, I like really mad at him one time,
and I threw the ball as hard as I could
and I broke his glasses. I kind of like hit
him in the face. He wore gloves and hit him
in the face, and like he acted like he was hurt,
and he acted like it was, uh, you know, I
broke his glasses. Well, his glasses didn't break. They're the
(07:56):
kind of like connect and they're like magnetic. I've never
worn glasses, so I didn't know. But I felt sort
of bad, not that bad, but a little bit bad.
But yeah, he but he's great, you know what I mean,
Like he really was great. But at the same time,
I will still say, defensive guys see things a little
differently than offensive guys. But he was helpful though.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Okay, so what did you see when Marshawn Lynch arrived
in the locker room?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I impressions, Well, you know, I just remember the first
team meeting. You know, Pete Carroll again, Like he came
in he was like Marshawn. So he did this thing
where he would introduce every new player. We had a
lot of transactions. He'd introduce him and he played a
joke on the player. And I don't want to give
away his joke necessarily, but but basically what I thought
the great part of it was is he said Marshaan
(08:43):
and Marshawn had had like a really tough career. I mean,
he was a disaster of being honest with all kinds
of problems and he came in. He was like, Marshawn,
I have wanted to coach you since you were at
Oakland Tech. I wanted you at SC like and I
am so glad to be here in the NFL because
I can go get who I want to get. You
(09:04):
are everything I'm looking for, you know, blah blah. I
don't want you to be anybody besides Marshawn, You just be.
You be the kid that I fell in love with
at Oakland Tech. And I think for Marshawn that was
like life breathing to him, you know. And I don't know.
I think it was a good start. And you know,
we played Chicago that week and we weren't a good team.
(09:25):
They were. We played pretty awesome. Marshawn rushed for like
sixty yards, but they were a great sixty yards, and
you know, it wasn't really about him. He was learning.
I think that one of the reasons that Marshawn was
successful is that our starting running back at the time
was justin Forcet, who went to cal with Marshaw and
(09:45):
they think he was in his wedding and the other
guy was shirm Smith. Terms with the running backs coach
justin foresaid and shirm Smith are two of the most humble,
most amazing men that I've ever known. Having Marshawn surrounded
by those two guys with Pete Carroll's kind of like
directive put him on a path to be successful. And
there were other things too, but it worked and obviously
(10:07):
Marshaun's been super successful since. So I just think it
was great Mike Robinson as well, Like there was just
like a it was a great room. People talk about
quarterback room a lot, running back room matters as well.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
When you watch Marshawn run, like you know that some
of that is innate, right, Like you just can't teach
some of that, some of the grit and some of
just that that contact balance that he had to know.
But how much did you watch him learn the game
or was it all just natural skill? Uh?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
You know, truthfully, he was probably in the front row
asleep a little bit early on.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Okay, so it was a natural.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
But I think what the coaches did a really good
job of is they gave him a small menu to start.
It's hard coming in, like you missed training camp, Otia's
all that stuff. He came in in October and so
we basically his his like menu was inside zone, outside zone,
and then he loved power and that was kind of thing.
And you know, it was a lot of transition, Like
(11:02):
we had an O line coach. We had the best
zone scheme O line coach that's ever lived in Alex Gibbs.
Starting the season, he retires like Thursday before.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Week one, say he didn't even make it to the season.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
So there was a lot of stuff like kind of like,
you know, we were not on the moving walkway, so
to speak, like we were sort of walking the wrong
way on the moving walkway that were like the wind
was not at our backs. But Marshawn I think the
coaches did a good job of like giving him like
you know what he could handle. He wasn't in the
(11:35):
passing game a lot, Like there were a lot of
different things that way. We had Leon Washington, we had
justin but he definitely was our first and second down.
He was the hammer, not the nail kind of guy.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I remember sitting with him at his locker one day,
and it's always nerve wracking for me when guys like
that come in during the middle of the year because
I'm counting on training camp to get to know, you guys,
just like you're counting on training camp to get to
know everybody else. And Marshawn was quiet and he had grills, right,
so he had just this mouthful. His smile was awesome
(12:08):
and he I was sitting there and he started asking
me what my first impressions of him were. And it
was really interesting because you could tell how his time
in Buffalo had influenced him right, and you could tell
just to what you were saying that to feel loved
for who you are was a new thing for him.
(12:30):
And that conversation progressed, and you know, he asked if
if I would ever be afraid to do an interview
with him.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I'm like, no, I'm not afraid to do an interview.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
And we started talking about like college and you know,
like he goes, I know people don't think I paid
attention in school. I actually did pay attention in school,
you know, like I can do all those things. And
it was fascinating because the what people see on the
field is not always the way that he was in
the locker room. I found him to be awesome.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Oh, no doubt. I don't think anyone would say otherwise. Well,
one thing that was interesting is Pete. Carroll had hired
Marshawn's uncle, Uncle Lee to work here at the building,
you know.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
And.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
I was usually I felt like I was usually like
the first guy to work one of them, if not
the first player. And but like the people who work
in the building are here even before the players, you know.
And I remember the first time I came in, there
was like a like a body laying in front of
like Marshawn's locker, and I'm like, who is this? Well, anyway,
(13:32):
long story short, Uncle Lee had to be at work early,
and Marshawn was his ride. And so like Marshawn for
the rest of that season that I remember, he would
beat me to work every day because he had to
be there with Uncle Lee. And Uncle Lee had like
you know, like players have shorter hours than like some
of the people that work here, and Uncle Lee was
had late hours, and so like Marshawn was his ride home,
and like, and I think to this, like uncle Lee
(13:54):
became like family to all of us, and correct me
if I'm wrong. I think I think he still works here.
It's so great, He's so great, But I just like
think whatever your image of Marshawn might have been because
he plays it up pretty good. No, he was. He's
a family first, team first kind of guy and unique
(14:14):
and different and whatever, but but no, he was. He
was all in. He was all in and when it
came to goal line, shortyardage, first down, second down, that
was his menu that year and he rocked it. He
did great.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
So before we get to the beast quake, we have
to win the game that Charlie Whitehurst is quarterbacking. This
is kind of an interesting feeling I would imagine for you, right,
I know that you were battling injuries that year, but
to see your backup, to know that you have to
cheer for your backup and that this is winner take
all essentially, right, Yeah, do you remember how you like
(14:51):
talked to Charlie before that game or what you were feeling.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, listen, I love Charlie and I was always rooting
for him. I didn't necessarily want us to trade away
the draft pick that could have gotten us Eric Decker,
you know, instead of him, Like you know what I mean, Like,
maybe that was true, but but no, I was rooting
for him. But yeah, I was mad. I was mad
that he started that game. Like I said, I was
battling injury at all kinds of stuff I had, like
(15:15):
basically like ripped a glute muscle scoring a touchdown in
Tampa the week before. That injury was really an injury
I had sustained against Carolina or a team that color,
you know, maybe Carolina, Detroit one of I think it
was maybe Detroit, somebody at home the week before in
pregame and I was just like hanging on and made
it through that game. And but anyway, I was angry
(15:37):
at a broken wrist, like all these different things going on.
And Pete was like, we're gonna sit you. We got
some plays we want to run that we can only
do with Charlie's in there, and we're gonna sit you.
And he said to me, we're gonna let you come
in in the bottom of the night like Kirk Gibson
and be the hero if Charlie can't get it done.
And like, okay, Like I guess that made sense, I'll say.
(16:00):
In that moment, though, Pete had a special relationship with
this kid, Jake Olsen was his name, who lost his sight.
He was a young kid, not a kid anymore, and
he was with us the night that Pete told us
told me build the quarterbacks, Charlie's gonna start, and so
like I was angry because I had done everything I
(16:21):
could to get back. I really felt like I could go,
but I was there with Jake. It's like diehard USC
fan that loved Pete. And there was a lot of
USC people, a lot of people that weren't on our
team around our team that year, which is also an
adjustment from the Mike Hongrean years. But I think just
being around that kid that night, for me personally, gave
me a little bit more of a perspective and a
(16:42):
joy that like, like, dude, if you even for a nanosecond,
feel like you can feel sorry for yourself right now?
Like like no, like absolutely not. And I actually had
like sort of like a picture that Jake gave me
as a thank you for like hanging out or whatever
in my locker really the rest of my NFL career,
(17:06):
and it was just a picture of him.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So you turn into a great teammate. Not you shouldn't
they turn into all of the sudden teammate all of
us sad sorry about that. You were always a great teammate.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
No, it was good. It was a good Charlie played great,
and we it was a cool atmosphere. It felt like
it felt like kind of we all said like, wow,
that felt like a playoff game. Until we had the
beast Quake game. We're like, oh, shoot, no, no, no,
that's what a playoff game feels like. Because that atmosphere
was like otherworldly. I think there was a chip on
everybody's shoulder, fans especially, you know, fans included. But no,
(17:43):
that was a special night. It was cool.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Well in that playoff game, though, the week of rest
must have done some good, because you go twenty two
for thirty five two hundred and seventy two yards for
touchdowns in the playoff game.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
I play a little bit better with a chip on
my shoulder, and I was angry. It wasn't like a
bitter kind of angry. It was more of like there
was a burning fire inside. Even that week in practice,
Pete came to the quarterbacks and he was like, listen,
he said to me. He's like, you're going to start,
but I'm not letting the Saints know. This is back
before social media was like everywhere, and we were waiting
(18:20):
until Sean Payton and the Saints got on their airplane
to fly to Seattle. That's when he announced to our
local media who the starter was. So to do that
we were sharing reps in practice for like the media,
like we were doing all that kind of stuff, even
for the players on the team. So I was like,
you're robin reps. I mean I guys like Gus Bradley
(18:41):
coming up and Dan Quinn coming up to me. I
mean like, hey, you know, I want to do it
this way, you know, just just you know, like you know,
with you like, but I had a you know, I
was hot. And we were practicing with crowd noise every
day for our defense because it's hard on the defense
to have our crowd noise, and so like it was
there was an intensity and like I think I might
even worn earplugs that week, Like do not talk to me.
(19:03):
I Am just gonna be all about the football. Don't
come over like with your smile, chewing all your gum
like looking at me like that, like no, you're not
my friend, Like that line that Bridge has been like
I'm here to win games and like that, if you're
here to do that too, then good where we can
get along. And so we go into that game. The
very first pass that I throw on the game. It's
(19:23):
like this sprint out. The motion gets timed up wrong,
the ball gets tipped, it gets intercepted, and I'm like,
all right, that's it. Like he's been dying not to
play me anyway, and I'm like, I'm gonna just take
it like a man. I'm gonna just come over there,
take the benching, and I walk right over to Pete,
the kind of jog right in front of him, like
(19:43):
when Mike Homegroom is mad at me. I would come
off like the thirty yard line avoid hide, not looking
at you. You're not looking at me, you can't see you.
I went right past Pete and just fully expecting him
to say, Hey, my whole thing is it's all about
the ball. You can't turn the ball over. You turn
the ball over, you can't play. I go right by
him and he doesn't say that. He basically was like
with a smile on his face, chewing gum. He was like, hey,
(20:07):
shake that off, something like shake that off. We need
you today, and it was just like whoa like didn't
expect it again, he was such a dynamic leader and motivator,
just didn't expect it. And I think from that moment on,
I was like, man, screw it, like, cut it freaking loose.
Be an artist, not a blacksmith. And like basically what
(20:31):
Jed Fish had told me earlier in the year about
like you're playing defensive and that's why you're turning the
ball over, Like that's why you're leaving your putt short.
He basically said to me, like, I see you drive
like I'm the four h five. You drive like you're
from Boston. You drive like kind of aggressive, and it's
sort of the safest way to drive. You don't drive
like someone at Driver's at ten and two, you know, like,
oh no, I'm afraid I'm gonna get in on an accident.
(20:53):
You cut it loose. And so after that first pass,
that first interception, I had this mindset was like, screw it,
cut it loose, have fun, like no regrets. And I
think that's a little bit how the rest of the
game went, certainly not how it started.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Okay, but you get to the point where it's you're
gonna hand the ball to Marshaan. Now we know the
end result of that play, right, We know that it
covered the entire length of the field. I believe that
was a second and ten play call. What was that
call supposed to result in? How many yards were you
supposed to get on that play?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
You said it was second and ten. I had no idea,
Like I did not know that I was playing the clock.
So we were in four minute offense, you know. So
like even going into the game, like we felt disrespected, right,
even the coaches when they were coaching the game plan
by accident, they were disrespectful. Like Jeremy Bates, the offensive coordinator,
comes in, He's like, listen, this team is so much
(21:51):
better than us. So we're gonna have to do smoking mirrors,
you know. You know, John Carlson, we got a way
we can, like, you know, get your kind of sneaky guy.
No one notices you sometimes we can get you like,
you know, like all these different things, stokely. No one
thinks you're fast, you know, the big Mike Williams. No
one thinks you're fast, like all these things. So when
we got to four minute, which is what we call
(22:13):
a situation when we're playing the clock not the scoreboard,
it was almost just like an afterthought. We had not
really talked about it. Now. Marshawn on the sidelines was
always asking for the same play he wanted power, and
we were trying to be a zone team. But a
great thing that all zone teams do is they mix
in a little bit of power. But when you don't
(22:34):
do power a lot, you're usually not good at it,
you know. And so basically there's some coaching points that
you give each each person. And my coaching point for Marshawn,
you know, I call the play that's just whatever the
formation is, seventeen power on one on one, ready break.
(22:54):
I would always say to Marshawn, hit it downhill. I'm
gonna give you vision of the week side a gap,
so meaning like odds go to the left, evens go
to the right, So seventeen we're going to the left.
But I'm gonna give you vision of basically the two
hole to the right in between the center and the guard. Well,
we don't block the play properly. Literally, almost no one
(23:17):
does their job right. But there's a saying in offensive
line rooms, and I think this is kind of true
for a lot of professions. If we're all wrong, together,
we're right, and so like do something full speed, like
give it all you got, and we did. Now I
mix up my like my play fake after sometimes I'll bootleg.
(23:38):
Sometimes I'll set to pass whatever I set to pass
that on that play, and had like a pretty good
view of the start of it, but it turned into
something I could have never imagined.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
What did it feel like as you heard, because you
couldn't have seen everything right.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Well because I set to pass, you know, like you know,
like basically so like when you boot away, like some
coaches would say, like drive for five like five hard steps,
not looking at the play like you know, let you know,
if you want a ticket, sit in the stands kind
of thing. If you set to pass, like you hand
it off, you kind of like, you know, hunch over
a little bit like your boomeras I sent or Steve
de Berg or something like that, and then you set
(24:19):
up and kind of like look straight down the middle
of the field. So yeah, so like I saw him,
you know whatever, like go and literally in four minute,
like some of the coaching points everyone has one like
for the running backs, two hands on the ball, don't
run out of bounce. For wide receivers, oh line like
hey we can't have a penalty and stop the clock
or quarterback your playfake is no longer really that important.
(24:42):
Follow the ball, But like to think that I was
going to be anywhere near the ball is sort of like,
you know, that's not gonna happen. Honestly, the best thing
that happened on that play is probably that I don't
get called for an illegal block in the back because
I was so excited just running down there, and like
I had like a club on my left hand and
I put it out and then the one dude kind
of falls and it was, you know, could have taken
(25:04):
away the best run in NFL history. Luckily luckily it didn't.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Okay, so where does that play call again?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
We know what the result was, Where does that play
call fall on? Like your top three plays or plays
that you ever get.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I mean, it's the greatest run in NFL history, no doubt,
but there's nothing special about the play. Like every play
every team in the NFL runs seventeen power. I mean
I coach high school football. We probably called power left
seventeen times a game, and we call it ten times
a game, I bet, you know. So, like, it's nothing
special about the play and we blocked it wrong. It
was just like this collective guys blocking downfield. Offensive linemen,
(25:44):
defensive lineman, Chris Spencer, Tyler Columbus wide receivers, Like it
was special like that, and and again like we weren't
necessarily trying to score. We're trying to run out the clock.
There's less than four minutes ago. We're trying not to
give the ball back. We have a four point lead.
We don't want to give the ball back to Drew
Brees and company. And I remember we score in like
(26:05):
we're all huddled up like kind of again as players,
and I like look up and I never really ever
looked up to like where my family was sitting, like ever,
but I look up and I see like literally like
where my kids are sitting, my parents, my mom, and
my wife's sitting and like and I'm basically just like
I put my hands out, like can you freaking believe this?
Like we did it? Like I know Pete was saying
(26:27):
we're O and O and there oh and O, but like,
but really, did you think this was gonna happen? It
was epic? It was absolutely, I mean it was epic.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
It was pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And you know what would be helpful is if you
had the Sony one thousand XM five noise canceling headphones
for that game, because every game this season. You can
feel every play, every hit, every moment with the official
headphones of the Seattle Seahawks with premium noise cancelation. You
were in the zone, no distractions, just pure football. Whether
you were in your living room or on the go,
you will never miss a beat with Sony had fun else.
(27:01):
That turned out to be the last game that you
played for the Seahawks.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Home game, home game. We played one more game. It
is also that was the last home game.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It also feels to me like after the way two
thousand and four ended or two thousand and three, like
when you think about the disappointing finishes that you have
had that you had previously shared, that maybe that was
some extra gratification or validation.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
It was incredible, and I would just say, like the
end of the game, game's over. My kids had never
once ever been on the field after like when like
I was still on the field, Like we kind of
had a family rule, like after the game's over, everybody's
gone home or like whatever, like if we won, sure
we'll come out to the field and we'll play catch
er whatever before we go Y Krispy Kreme for a
(27:49):
donut or somewhere like that. Something completely unhealthy. So we
had kind of had that family rule, but never had
my kids ever been on the field. But my roommate, well,
one of my teammates, his wife must have been like,
you don't know, listening to talk radio or something, she
was like, this might be his last game as a
(28:09):
Seahawk or last game here at what was then Quest Field.
And so she finds a police officer takes my kids
down to the field and gets them on the field.
And so there was a special moment like I'm there
and uh, postgame interviews whatever, like all the stuff, and
then we're walking off and I, you know, I don't
(28:30):
want to lose my kids, you know, And I got
Henry on my shoulders. I give the football to my daughter,
my other daughter, you know, Annabelle, like she's holding on
to her, and we walk off, and you know, I
got these amazing rod Mark Quirky Truan photos of us
walking off the field for what was I didn't know
at the time was my last game here as the
(28:53):
Seahawks quarterback. So it's a it's a memory that I mean,
it's like a movie for me. It was great what.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Happened to the football?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah, so I didn't know this at the time, but
like we mentioned, Marshawn scores, he does this celebration that
he got fined for. Me and Ben Obomano pick up
the ball and we take it over to the equipment
managers and we're like, hey, that was the greatest running
NFL history. Save this ball for Marshawn, which they do,
no big deal. Well whatever, John Carlson recovers an on
(29:23):
side kick, you know, and we go back into the
game and we're just gonna take a knee. Well, Marshawn,
being classic Marshawn, he takes that football, gives it to
the official and says, hey, I want to close out
the game with this football. Well, we're not running anymore plays,
we're just taking a knee. So we take a knee,
taking knee whatever. Marshawn bolts to the locker room. That
(29:45):
was back when he didn't want to talk to anybody,
and so he gets out of there. Next thing, I know,
I got the ball. Everyone's rushing the field. I'm doing
an interview with like Alex flanagain or someone. My kids
are there. I'm like, I give the ball to my
daughter Mallory. Anyway, that's the ball. It's in all the pictures.
But years later NFL films they trying to track down
(30:05):
this ball and they come to me and they were like, oh,
we're trying to track down the ball and I'm like, well,
what do you mean. I saved it and gave it
to the equipment managers from Marshawn and they were like no, no, no,
And they tell me how Marshan put the ball back
in the game, and I was like, why would he
do that. I'm like, if that's true, then that ball
is in my daughter's room. And so they were like,
oh my gosh, you got to give the ball back
(30:25):
to him. I'm like, well yeah, but like you know
what we're saying, like that ball's been played with, it's
been in my pool, my dog's probably had it in
his mouth. Like it's like you know what I mean,
it's like the movie sand Lot at this point, you know.
So I mean maybe that's maybe that makes it a
little more Marshan anyway, but we'll see.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Did he get the ball back?
Speaker 3 (30:47):
You know what, I'd need to cause we moved around
a lot, like we have a lot of stuff in storage.
So by the time I heard that story from NFL films.
I was at the end of my career about forty
years old, and all my stuff it's like in boxes
and it's in storage. Sorry, it's in storage, so like
it's there somewhere. But we need to like we need
(31:08):
like an investigative like authenticator to be like, oh, yeah,
here's the referees number or the d you know whatever
however you do that. But yeah, if that's the if
that's what happened, then yeah, I mean, there you go.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
It's like an unsolved mystery that we might be able
to solve in the fiftieth season of the season.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Maybe the hundredth season when I'm gone.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Maybe he's not going to give up that football.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
No, yeah, I mean you can have it. It's it's
I would like to donate it to like wherever, the
Hall of Fame or whoever.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Okay, we'll see if we can make that happen.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
But for now, you know the story behind the Beast
Quake run. Thank you to Matt Hasselback. Thank you for
joining us on another episode of Seahawks Story's fiftieth season edition.
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