Millions Can Identify With Jon Kitna Seahawks Throw Their Everyman At Colts
If America really loves an underdog, Jon Kitna will have the fans behind him Saturday night in the Kingdome.
Anyone who never played in a top 10 program - or a top 100 program - can identify with the improbable odds that Kitna has bowled over to become the for-now starting quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks.
Saturday night’s Seahawks-Indianapolis Colts game is an exhibition with an appeal. It strikes a chord with anyone who knows what it’s like to lose 55-0 in high school.
Kitna did.
This is Peyton Manning, the second-generation millionaire quarterback from the Indianapolis Colts by way of Tennessee, against the guy from Central Washington, The Everyman, Kitna.
“As somebody said this morning, the $11 million signing bonus, or whatever it is he got, against the no signing bonus,” Kitna said Monday with a grin, after the Seahawks wrapped up their second practice on another hot day at Eastern Washington University.
The idea of a quarterback stepping out of those two hotbeds of pro football prospects - Lincoln High of Tacoma and Central Washington University in Ellensburg - was floated last year, when Kitna beat the Raiders in a late-season start. Since then, aided by a nice fourth-quarter mop-up piece against the 49ers in the final game, he’s been talked up as the quarterback of the future.
Although just an exhibition, this start may just carry steeper expectations, since it comes with the Seahawks riding as high right now as their hopes. They won their pre-season opener. They have some talent. They’re 1-0 and coming home hungry.
The improbability of Kitna squiring around an offense with playoff potential is a reminder of what can happen if you’re good enough, and lucky enough.
Kitna threw for a bazillion yards at Central Washington University, but still needed a break to get to this level.
It came in his senior year in Ellensburg, courtesy of Seahawks coach Dennis Erickson, who knows a quarterback when he sees one. Erickson’s nephew wound up at Central that year as a running back. The coach checked out a couple of games.
“That was coach Erickson’s first year with the Seahawks,” Kitna said. “He got out to see us a couple of times, but he just gave us an opportunity to come work out. Things worked out really good when I had my workout. I wasn’t going to get an opportunity otherwise.”
So there he is, taking snaps from center Kevin Glover, who started in last year’s Pro Bowl after a standout year with the Detroit Lions.
He pitches to running back Ricky Watters, of 49ers, Philadephia Eagles and Notre Dame fame. He peers across the line at former NFL defensive player of the year Cortez Kenney, who just had a street named in his honor in his hometown of Wilson, Ark.
Jon Kitna, impressed?
No doubt.
Intimidated?
No way.
Jacked?
How would you feel?
When Kitna was throwing all those TD passes against Whitworth and Western, he did allow himself to dream beyond the Mount Rainier League.
“I thought I had a chance - thought I had the attributes and did what I needed to do to get that chance, even though I went to a small college,” he said. “It just took somebody giving me an opportunity. I didn’t think it was going to happen this fast, but I had a lot of confidence coming out of college.
“On the other hand,” he went on, “you look at things realistically and not a lot of people from my league get a chance, much less a chance at quarterback. I knew, realistically, I was a longshot, but I felt if I got an opportunity I’d give ‘em heck.”
He really did say heck, by the way. And the last thing an NFL quarterback wants to dwell on is “on the other hand.” It just clouds the big picture.
Kitna knows.
He destroyed the NAIA, stood out in the World League, beat the struggling Raiders last year in a game that didn’t mean much. The resume needs a little polish, but “it’s still football,” Kitna said. “Once the game starts none of that other stuff matters.
“I hear Petyon is doing really well in camp. I’m glad for him, but I think our defense will be a good test for him. I think they’re going to get after him.”
So the pressure’s on both young quarterbacks, not just the guy from the NAIA.
That 55-0 experience? It came in Kitna’s senior year at Lincoln High School in Tacoma. Kitna, Lawyer Malloy of the New England Patriots and a couple of other pretty good Lincoln Abes were thrashed by the South Kitsap Wolves. Nobody is comparing the South Kitsap Wolves to what goes on at this level, but there were lessons learned that night.
“It was my last game of high school football and we lost 55-0 at home,” Kitna said. “We had good athletes, but just the psychology of the game had a lot of our guys intimidated. When you’re intimidated, you lose. A lot.”
So Kitna will direct the first half-dozen offensive series against the Colts as if they were any other football team he’s found ways to beat. He figures if he can stand up to what’s been thrown at him so far at training camp, he can handle the start.
“You’re not going to see a whole lot better than our No. 1 defense,” he said.
What goes around …
Among observers at Monday’s practices was Don Fair, who covered the first Seahawks team in Cheney for the Seattle P-I in the summer of ‘76.
Now retired, Fair, 70, worked for the P-I from ‘68 through 1990. He did a quick compare and contrast job on the original Seahawks and today’s club training at EWU.
“The heat’s the same,” said Fair, perhaps best remembered for his pointed and sometimes heated exchanges with former Seahawks coach Jack Patera.
“I still see the kickers off by themselves. Everybody else is probably still grumbling that they have to do all the work. The wheat fields off in the distance are the same. There’s still a Northwest guy coaching the team (Patera came out of Portland, Dennis Erickson grew up in Everett).
“You see the same drills that day after day seem dull but still build football teams. There’s local, well-directed ownership again now (headed by Paul Allen), as there was then when the Nordstroms had the franchise.”
What’s different?
“Lots,” said Fair, who also covered the Sonics in their formative years in Seattle. “There aren’t as many players. You used to have a team coming, a team going and a team playing.
“You don’t hear coaches barking as much. The location is the same, but the practice field is so much better. The players are bigger. There are more coaches who are much more computerized or organized.
“I still see Dave Brown out there, but back then he was intercepting passes. Now he’s coaching guys how to do what he did. It’s nice to see those old Seahawks doing well.”
Would Fair want to work the beat in today’s climate?
“I won’t say I miss it,” he said, “but I understand they do have air conditioning in the rooms where the writers stay now, where they didn’t when we were in Streeter Hall.”
Almost as an afterthought he added, “I don’t know if Showalter’s is still the big (after-hours) place anymore.”
The biggest difference?
“There’s just an urgency now,” Fair said. “Not that you weren’t trying to win then, but with the salaries and the money being spent, and with new stadiums, it’s almost a case of having to win now.
“I think maybe we had a little more fun in those days simply because there wasn’t this urgency.”
Notes
Top draft pick Anthony Simmons is not as seriously hurt as previously feared. Simmons had an MRI to determine the damage to his left knee Monday, but did not undergo arthroscopic surgery, coach Dennis Erickson said. “When you start talking days (out) it’s hard to evaluate,” the Seahawks coach said. “It could be a couple weeks, it could be three weeks, but he didn’t get ‘scoped and that’s a plus.” … Michael Barber, like Simmons a linebacker, should be ready this week, possibly as early as today. Linebacker Dean Wells will also return to practice this week, Erickson said… Talking about what running back Ricky Watters brings to Seattle, quarterback Jon Kitna said, “With some of our passing stuff, a lot of guys aren’t going to tackle him one-on-one. You can end up throwing the ball behind the line of scrimmage and gaining 50 yards. It’s exciting.” … Weekend talks produced no progress towards ending veteran quarterback Warren Moon’s holdout.