Josh Brown

[Always a husker]

Did anyone see Josh Brown make two tackles in the Seahawks game against the Falcons? He then got up and started talking crap to the returner; it was hilarious. Yes I'm talking about the former Nebraska kicker Josh Brown. This isn't the game but look at him here. Josh Brown

[KansasHusker]

I saw that on sportscenter, but forgot about it. So hilarious. Good day for a kicker in tackling!

[T_O_Bull]

Tackling Devon Hester. Good for Josh.

>>>T_O_B

[HUSKER 37]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/seaha...ory/207555.html

 

Kick it deep, then let players make plays – even if it’s the kickerJOHN MCGRATH; THE NEWS TRIBUNE Published: November 19th, 2007 01:00 AM

 

Forget how the Seahawks recovered from a 10-0 deficit they faced, as head coach Mike Holmgren put it, “before we could blink.”

Pay no mind to the 337 passing yards Matt Hasselbeck put together with the help of eight different receivers, or the defense’s five-sack assault on Chicago quarterback Rex Grossman.

 

All you need to remember about Seattle’s 30-23 victory over the defending NFC champion Bears on Sunday was that Josh Brown tackled Devin Hester.

 

Think about this: The most electrifying return man in the NFL was taken down by a bald placekicker who, until Sunday, had yet to be credited with either a tackle or an assist in 2007.

 

Brown, who usually saves his displays of jubilation for the occasional game-winning field goal kicked in the waning moments of the fourth quarter, reacted to his tackle with a combination of satisfaction and astonishment. He turned to the crowd, lofted his arms, and seemed on the cusp of taking a bow before it occurred to him that curtain calls are usually performed by receivers in the end zone.

 

It did feel pretty good,” Brown said afterward. “It was Devin Hester.”

 

Brown’s teammates realized why he was so fired up.

 

“It gives him something to talk about on his radio show Tuesday, I guess,” said Hasselbeck. “You can only talk about kicking the ball so much ...”

 

Turning serious, Hasselbeck added: “Josh is a good athlete. He tore it up in Oklahoma playing eight-man football. He was a great high jumper. He’s pretty athletic. He works hard in the weight room.

 

“Great tackle, really. A great tackle.”

 

Brown admits that, at the age of 28, he’s lost a step from his days as an Oklahoma high school track and field star.

 

“I’m not super-fast anymore,” he said, “but I had a good angle on him.”

 

Brown also had the benefit of what seemed like hours spent in pent-up frustration. Determined not to let Hester go to the house on them – in 25 regular-season games, he’s scored eight touchdowns on returns – the Seahawks began the game with an indifferent intermediate kickoff returned to the 50-yard line by the Bears’ Garret Wolfe.

 

As a consequence of nothing but the reputation of its mercurial return man, Chicago had a half-field head start on the Seahawks’ end zone – and the game was seven seconds old.

 

Brown attempted other kickoffs that gave the Bears decent – if not terrific – field position. Finally, on his first kickoff of the second half, he got the OK to boom it as far as he could. Hester caught the ball at the goal line and managed 27 yards before he was brought down by Brown, but the emphatic tackle and the resultant roar in Qwest Field sure beat the footsy-squib nonsense coaches insist is preferable to giving up the occasional touchdown.

 

Brown couldn’t wait to kick deep.

 

“We were giving up too much field position trying to kick short, trying to kick it on the ground, trying to kick it this way and that,” he said. “We have one of the best cover teams in the country. You’ve got to give your guys the opportunity to cover.

 

“I mean, sure, Devin Hester is a force to be reckoned with on any given day – he’s that good – but you don’t want to discredit your own players. We have a great special-teams unit. You can’t take the ball out of our hands. You’ve got to allow us to play our own game and be as good as we can be.”

 

The rest of the league might want to follow Brown’s advice: Play football. Forget the cat-and-mouse nonsense. Trust players to make plays.

 

Kicking the ball here, there and everywhere but long and true might keep your special teams unit out of the SportsCenter highlight package, but a succession of drives that begin at midfield can be taxing on a defense.

 

At least the Seahawks could be forgiven for recognizing a trend that’s been followed by everybody but the Oakland Raiders, who vowed to kick the ball to Hester last week. (They did, and though the Raiders were beaten, Hester was not a factor.)

 

But how to explain the Bears’ reluctance to kick deep to the Seahawks? After Adrian Peterson’s touchdown on a 5-yard plunge gave Chicago a 17-14 lead with 1:21 remaining in the first half, the Bears’ Robbie Gould lofted a half-hearted kick that bounced out of bounds, giving the Hawks possession at their own 40-yard line.

 

With 76 seconds on the clock and two timeouts left, facing the Bears’ Cover-Two – or is it Cover Who? – Hasselbeck needed only three plays to put the Seahawks in position for a 40-yard field goal. A chip shot by Brown’s standards, the gift-wrapped score enabled Seattle to go into halftime tied at 17.

 

The Hawks regained all the momentum they briefly lost on Peterson’s touchdown, and never trailed again.

 

“That was a very big play,” said Seattle return man Nate Burleson, the source of the Bears’ angst. “I don’t know if it was intentional or if the kicker just got it off his foot wrong. But that helped put us in field position.”

 

When it was pointed out that Chicago simply was protecting against a significant kickoff return, Burleson smiled.

 

“It’s always funny to me,” he said, “when teams want to kick away from me. I don’t see myself as Devin Hester, or Deion Sanders. I’m just a guy trying to make a play.”

 

Burleson was exercising modesty; he’s a threat to turn any punt or kickoff into a sizeable gain. But, hey, isn’t every return man?

 

I’m with Josh Brown. Kick deep. Kick true. Trust your guys on special teams to stay in their lanes and make the stop. After all, there are 10 professionals on any kickoff unit – 10 tacklers drooling for the chance to contribute – and, sometimes, even an 11th man, the bald guy who stops the superstar in his tracks, turns to the crowd, and hears roars that are unlike those that follow any kind of kick.

 

John McGrath; 253-597-8742, ext. 6154