Seahawks defense goes its own way

Thanks to the magic of replay review, the turnover that best defined the swashbuckling Seattle Seahawks defense never happened Sunday.

The New York Giants, who hadn’t crossed the 50-yard line until they benefited from a goofy “defenseless receiver” penalty midway through the fourth quarter, appeared to be putting together a scoring drive after quarterback Eli Manning completed a pass to Brandon Myers at the Seattle 34. As Myers came down, Malcom Smith stripped the ball and fellow linebacker Bobby Wagner recovered it.

A bedrock principle of Fundamental Football – Walter Camp was preaching this 100 years ago – is that defensive players must hold onto the football after the opposition gives it to them. The Seahawks had a 23-0 lead. No reason to be greedy.

Then again, we’re talking about a team coached by Pete Carroll, which is to say: This team kind of makes things up in the spur of the moment. So instead of protecting the precious cargo, Wagner lobbed the ball, hot-potato style, to safety Earl Thomas, who took off toward his own end zone.

Had Thomas lost his bearings, the way Vikings’ defensive tackle Jim Marshall did during his infamous wrong-way run in 1964? Nah. Thomas was just plotting for some room to maneuver. After changing direction, Thomas ended up gaining 5 yards from the spot of the fumble.

Between Smith’s ball-stripping tackle, Wagner’s defiant lateral and Thomas long and winding road for a short gain, it was a classic Seahawks sequence that drew applause from Carroll. And then the officials overturned the call, ruling Myers’ knee had touched the ground before he surrendered possession.

No sweat. Six plays after the Giants were spared by the review booth, Manning threw a pass that cornerback Richard Sherman deflected to Thomas in the end zone, preserving the shutout.

Once in a while, a victorious team’s defense can be more entertaining to watch than its offense. Such was the case on Sunday, when most of the highlights – and all of the risk-taking – were done by Dan Quinn’s guys.

Quinn set the tone early, during the Giants opening drive, when he dialed up a Wagner blitz on third-and-10. Manning was sacked. His historically frustrating afternoon – five interceptions, including two apiece by Sherman and Byron Maxwell – had only just begun.

Remember when Chris Clemons, Brandon Mebane, Cliff Avril and Tony McDaniel were sidelined with injuries late in training camp, and Bruce Irvin was looking at a four-game suspension? Remember when defensive-line depth raised concerns about the Seahawks’ ability to mount a pass rush?

Remember, more recently, when such rookie running backs as the St. Louis Rams’ Zac Stacy and the Tampa Bay Bucs’ Mike James sliced through the defensive line without having to break stride?

That’s so yesterday, but worth recalling. There’s an intriguing cycle of life about the 2013 Seahawks: Whenever the defense lapses, the offense responds with high-octane proficiency. On Sunday, it was a show-stealing defense that allowed the Seahawks to return home with both a league-best 12-2 record and a belief that the best is yet to come. Concluded Giacomini: “We want to be perfect.”

Perfection on a football field is impossible. But the pursuit of it?

The idea of it?

That’s the stuff of an excellent adventure – an adventure the ball-hawking, lateral-tossing, go-your-own way Seahawks were born to fulfill.