Smith Has Eye-Opener For Hawks Running Back’s Bright Performance Overshadows Terrible Auto Accident
Lamar Smith’s first burst, a 10-yard dash over left guard, most likely had fans consulting the roster to see who this No. 36 was.
By the next two carries, both 9-yard gainers, fans had likely recalled that Smith was the one who was driving during the tragic auto wreck last December that left Seattle Seahawks teammate Mike Frier paralyzed.
And in the second half of the preseason game against St. Louis, by the time Smith had racked up a dramatic 56-yard run and pulled in a 48-yard scoring pass, observers had figured out something else about Lamar Smith - this guy can really play.
As a reserve to starting running back Chris Warren, Smith finished with 96 yards on only six carries and 58 more on a pair of catches.
“Really, we haven’t seen him play all that much and it was just nice to see him out there and get the opportunity to show what he has,” Hawks coach Dennis Erickson said.
What he has, apparently, are soft hands, an impressive burst of speed and a good sense of where the holes in the defense are.
On his 56-yard run, for instance, the play called for him to slash off right tackle, but that route was blocked by Rams.
“The whole defense had run that way,” Smith said. “I stopped and looked backside and it was open. I took it and I just started hauling.”
Smith confused the Rams defense when he lined up at slotback on the long scoring reception from quarterback John Friesz.
“It was an out-and-up by Lamar and the safety bit on the dig route, which is like a 15-yard in,” Friesz explained. “And when I saw him bite, I just laid it up. It wasn’t my best pass, but it worked.”
Smith knew he would be wide open when he broke past the safety. “I was just hoping John would hurry up and throw it,” he said. Smith was a bit of a gamble when he was taken in the third round of the 1994 draft. He had a history of shoulder injuries, but also of brilliance at Houston, where he averaged nearly 8 yards a carry as a junior.
Last year, he rushed the ball only twice during the season, and was out for the year with back and ankle injuries suffered in the car accident.
The motivation for Smith, then, is fairly clear: to show there’s more to him than just a bad reputation resulting from that wreck.
“I just want to show the coaching staff and the Seahawks that I can play football and that I want to play for this team,” Smith said. “I haven’t played since last November and I wanted to go out and prove something.”
Hawks notes
It’s said that a center only gets attention when he does something wrong.
Seahawk Matt Joyce got a lot of attention Saturday night.
A free agent out of Richmond, the 6-foot-7, 283-pound Joyce spent last year on the Dallas practice squad as a defensive lineman.
Cincinnati then picked him up and tried to make an offensive tackle out of him, and the Seahawks have bumped him from guard to center.
Saturday, he was the culprit in three bad snaps - two exchanges and one from the shotgun.
“He’s a guy who has played defense all his life and we moved him to center just 10 days ago, so he’s in an impossible situation,” Friesz said. “It’s a hard job to make all the (line blocking) calls he has to make and then get the ball up. So, it’s not second nature to him yet and we were asking a lot of him.”
- The crowd of 35,607 in the Kingdome Saturday was the smallest home attendance ever for a Hawks preseason game.
- Hawks defensive tackle Cortez Kennedy saw something he liked from the team Saturday.
“Intensity,” Kennedy said. “This is one of the things that Coach Erickson brings to this team - a high intensity level. He did a great job in his first game.”
- Granted, it was only the first preseason game, but the Seahawks took a great deal of relief in it, considering the rash of injuries that had hit training camp.
“With our bad luck, it was good for us to get a good start,” Friesz said. “It was only a preseason game, but it was still a win.”
- Linebacker Duane Bickett, who missed most of last year with back problems, got the Hawks off to a quick start by returning an interception for a touchdown.
Bickett was asked repeatedly to explain it in the locker room. At one point, he was asked if he minded talking about it again.
“Do I mind talking about it? Come by my house tonight and I’ll still be talking about it,” he said.
- Seattle came out of the game relatively healthy as receiver Robb Thomas’ finger injury was a sprain and not a fracture as believed. Reserve quarterback Stan Gelbaugh suffered a sprained right shoulder.
Also, left guard Jeff Blackshear, who returned to camp last week, will take over the starting role this week.
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