When the going got nutty, Hawks turn to tried and Tru

SEATTLE – That’s the trouble with the NFL – nobody really starts playing until the fourth quarter.

Good thing the customers at Qwest Field – unlike some other football stadia we could name – understand that often as not, their Seattle Seahawks make it good to the last drop.

Had they not stuck around, had they departed Saturday afternoon with their heroes ahead 13-0 and scooted off to make plane reservations to Green Bay next weekend, here’s what they would have missed:

“A pratfall by the home team so spectacular that the field had to have been recovered with BananapeelTurf.

“A pooch kick that Seahawks return ace Nate Burleson lost in the clouds, a palm-to-forehead gaffe you would have sworn was straight out of the Washington State Cougar special teams playbook but wasn’t.

“A missed field goal so elementary that half of the 68,297 wannabes in attendance could have made it, and not just in their dreams.

“Seeing quarterback Matt Hasselbeck not get mad at being bested by a rookie safety – twice – but most definitely get even.

“The first interception of a Todd Collins pass in 10 years. That’s right – 10 years. OK, until the last month he pretty much hadn’t thrown a pass since disco, but history is history.

And, of course, they would have missed another Tru story.

Seattle’s preposterous 35-14 victory over the Washington Redskins in the NFL’s playoff opener included some of the highest drama and lowest comedy in the franchise’s 32-year history, and yet the defining moment – the deciding moment – was somehow delivered by the understated, unsung, underrated, underappreciated, unprepossessing Marcus Trufant.

The un and only.

This probably should have been expected. What was required above all in the hallucinogenic flip and flop of this fourth quarter was someone almost annoyingly unflappable, and in that respect the Seahawks have maybe never had someone quite like their fifth-year cornerback from Wazzu.

The 78-yard interception return for the touchdown that restored order Saturday has already been committed to highlight heaven. Seahawks defensive tackle Rocky Bernard driving Collins to the turf as the ball is released. Receiver Santana Moss never picking up sight of the satellite as it descended. Trufant collecting the ball and uncoiling up the sideline (“I used to play offense in high school – a lot of guys don’t believe that”). Tackle Brandon Mebane blowing up Washington’s Stephon Heyer to send Trufant on his way.

“When Marcus got the interception,” Mebane said, “everything seemed to slow down.”

Good thing. It was absolutely frantic to that point.

The lead Seattle had painstakingly built over three quarters had disappeared beneath two Redskins touchdowns in the space of 135 seconds. The season seemed to be getting away from the Seahawks altogether when Burleson failed to field that kickoff, but just as improbably Washington kicker Shaun Suisham hooked a 30-yard field goal that would have put the Skins four points ahead. Within a few ticks of the clock, Hasselbeck had been intercepted for the second time in the quarter by LaRon Landry – only to burn the rookie with a devastating look-off on a 20-yard touchdown pass to D.J. Hackett that gave Seattle the lead again, for good.

Burleson had a wonderful, redemptive catch in that drive and relished it, but mostly he and the Seahawks basked in the whole crazy scene.

“It was a good feeling to be part of something special, especially in that fourth quarter when things were turning around,” he admitted. “Having the momentum switch from our side to their side and back on our side in such a profound way was unbelievable. Just to be able to relax in the fourth quarter of a playoff game is something that doesn’t happen often.”

The spectacle was too wild to be any sort of tidy representation of the Seahawks’ season, except in one respect: the hanging-in-there part.

Seattle, remember, was 4-4 midway through this season. Five-hundred could have won the NFC Weak, but coach Mike Holmgren wasn’t taking any chances and went back to his “roots” with an offense that shunted the Seahawks’ anemic running game to a secondary – very secondary – role. Five straight wins followed, not all of them pretty.

“You hang in there – that is what the NFL is about, really,” Holmgren said. “You hang in there, you overcome injuries, you keep believing, you don’t get down. When it gets bleak, you hang in there, you keep fighting – and this team has done that better than any team I’ve ever had, I think.”

Three bloody swings of the sword could have spelled the end for Seattle on Saturday: the no-huddle, silent-count, four-wides offense Washington used to produce its first touchdown, Hasselbeck’s first pick and the blown kickoff. Instead, the Seahawks fought on.

“It’s playoffs,” Trufant shrugged. “You have to play all the way through the game and you know the game is going to be back and forth. The fourth quarter is when you have to go out and earn your money.”

And make sure none of the customers ask for theirs back.