Here’s looking for you, Matt

BALTIMORE – Richard Sherman will be disappointed if he doesn’t get to see Matt Schaub again.

The last time the Seattle Seahawks’ All-Pro cornerback spent an afternoon with the now-Baltimore Ravens’ backup, he was helping ruin Schaub’s season and his career starting for the Texans.

On Sept. 29, 2013, a stifling Texas day, Seattle had come back from down 20-3 at halftime at Houston to within 20-13 with 3 minutes left. Schaub had led the Texans across midfield when he did exactly what Sherman and the Seahawks had scouted and practiced he’s do, in the exact formation at that exact place on the field. Sherman intercepted Schaub’s throwback pass and ran 58 yards the other way, comically losing his shoe en route. His touchdown tied the game and forced overtime.

Seattle won in the extra period, on its way to a 13-3 regular season and first Super Bowl title.

Houston got the second of 14 consecutive defeats to end 2013. Schaub made only four more starts before the Texans let him go into his current journeyman status.

Sherman’s face lit up at the memory this past week, before the currently surging Seahawks (7-5) play at Schaub’s Ravens (4-8) at M&T Bank Stadium on an unseasonably warm December Sunday here.

“I remember that game being incredibly hot. I remember them fooling us with the roof open at the beginning of the game and then trapping us with the roof closed with the heat and humidity and sweating to death,” Sherman said of the Schaub game in Houston. “But, yes, I do have fond memories of that game.”

Sherman said his theft of Schaub “was definitely a result of preparation” by then-defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, now Atlanta’s head coach.

“It was a play we saw multiple times, that we knew they’d run in that part of the field, with the ball on that hash, the down and distance was perfect. It was a great call by the coordinator,” Sherman said. “It was a great read by me. And it was a bit of a gamble, but educated guess. Took my hypothesis and executed.”

That was part of four consecutive games in which Schaub threw a pick-six. The odds of that happening, according to a mathematician in the Washington Post, is more than 6,800 to 1.

Incredibly, Schaub enters Sunday having interceptions returned for scores in each of his last three starts, including last weekend in a 15-13 loss at Miami; he’s been subbing for Joe Flacco, the Super Bowl champion who is out for the season following knee surgery. If Schaub throws another interception that gets returned for a touchdown against Seattle, he will tie his own NFL record.

The Washington Post went on to calculate the odds of the same quarterback throwing pick-6s in four consecutive games twice in a career. It’s one in 12,000. That’s 4,000 times more unlikely than getting struck by lightning.

Alas, Schaub was struck by the Dolphins last week. Often. He went through the league’s concussion protocol and missed Ravens practices Wednesday and Thursday with what the team said was a bruised chest.

So the third-stringer that’s been taking all the snaps in practice this week has been: Jimmy Clausen.

Maybe Sherman won’t be so sad if he doesn’t see Schaub.

Clausen was Chicago’s fill-in for injured Jay Cutler Sept. 27 when the Bears played at CenturyLink Field. He fared even worse than Schaub did the last time he played Seattle. Clausen managed just 48 net yards passing and played basically like a high-school QB who’d been converted from another position for the game. Almost every play the Bears had Clausen hand the ball toMatt Forte. Chicago gained just 146 total yards, punted 10 times in 10 drives, and the Seahawks rolled 26-0. And that was during a time in this season when they weren’t functioning at anywhere near the level they are now.

Schaub didn’t practice this past week. If he can’t play, Clausen will (according to the Associated Press and STATS) become the sixth quarterback to start against the same opponent for two different teams in the same NFL season. The last to do it was Kyle Orton in 2011 for Kansas City then Denver.

“It’s going to be a, probably, just a tolerance issue and how well he moves around,” Ravens coach John Harbaugh said of Schaub. “I wouldn’t be shocked if we see him play.”

Whoever plays, the Seahawks will seek to do what they did to Minnesota so decisively last week in a 38-7 road win that knocked the Vikings out of the NFC North lead. Seattle played patiently, staying in their assigned gaps and waiting for league rushing leader Adrian Peterson to come to them instead of chasing and getting exploited on cutback runs. Peterson gained just 18 yards, third-fewest of his 10-year career. That played into the Seahawks’ defensive strength. It put the entire game on quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and his check-down throwing. Seattle ambushed Vikings receivers in front of them immediately after the catch and held Minnesota to 125 total yards, the low in the league for one team this season.

If Seattle can put the same throttle on Javoris “Buck” Allen, Baltimore’s fill-in runner for injured former Seahawk Justin Forsett, it will put the game onto the arm of Schaub, who is also a check-down, short-passing specialist, or Clausen, who failed so miserably against the Seahawks 2½ months ago. Either scenario would seem to be a win for Seattle.

“We’ve been doing a good job of making teams one-dimensional,” Seahawks All-Pro middle linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “And that’s always going to turn in our favor.”

Almost everything has been turning in the Seahawks’ offense’s favor lately.

Russell Wilson has thrown 11 touchdown passes with no interceptions and a completion rate of 77 percent the last three games. He is 13-2 in December.

The offensive line that was so malfunctioning in the first half of the season is picking up blitzes and giving Wilson a pocket and time in it to throw the ball down the field, especially to Doug Baldwin. He has five touchdowns in the last two games.

Add in Thomas Rawls romping for a Seattle rookie-record 209 yards against San Francisco, plus 81 and 101 against Pittsburgh and Minnesota, and the offense has 106 points while averaging more than 450 yards in those victories.

Plus, while still talented in places this is not the Ray Lewis-Ed Reed Ravens defense. Baltimore is tied for 19th in the league allowing more than 24 points per game. They are last in the league in interceptions and 21st in allowing third-down conversions.

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll has been preaching all week that Baltimore’s record is deceiving. All of the Ravens’ losses have been by eight points or fewer, and most got decided late.

“They’ve got a lot of guys hurt, a lot of key players hurt. But you look at their games and they’ve all been close,” Wagner said.

“This is not a team that we can take lightly.”

Whatever. This is one the Seahawks should win. A two-time defending conference champion with so much at stake would have only itself to blame for overlooking anyone and giving away a game at this time of the season.

A win would send Seattle past Minnesota (8-5) for the fifth spot in the six-team NFC playoffs with three regular-season games remaining. The fifth seed gets a first-round game at the division winner with the worst record. That almost assuredly will be either Washington, the New York Giants, Philadelphia or Dallas in an NFC East where no team is better than 5-7.

It’s not a third-straight division title for Seattle – Arizona (11-2) needs only one more win to lock up the NFC West. But it’s far better than it looked like this team was headed when it was 0-2, 2-4 and 4-5

“We are confident in our ability to turn things around. We don’t ever let adversity define our season,” Wagner said. “A lot of teams would have called it quits and moved on. But we’re resilient.”

Did he ever feel even a little doubt this season?

“Never,” Wagner said. “The only doubt I sensed was everybody outside our locker room. We really weren’t too worried about what people thought outside the locker room.”