The standout effort from Seattle Seahawks strong safety Kam Chancellor against the Carolina Panthers last week will likely be remembered as much for a couple of plays he did not make as for the plays he did.
Trailing 14-7 near the end of the first half, Panthers kicker Graham Gano lined up to a kick a 35-yard field goal.
Just before the snap, Chancellor crouched from his spot in the middle of the Seahawks’ field goal block team, then sprinted to the line of scrimmage, jumping over the Carolina line and nearly blocking Gano’s attempt as it sailed through the uprights.
A false-start penalty on Carolina negated the play, so Chancellor – unbelievably – repeated his effort on the follow-up attempt, soaring through the air again and only missing a block because Gano pushed it so badly to his left.
But Chancellor’s back-to-back displays of athleticism, while memorable, were by no means his biggest contribution during Seattle’s 31-17 divisional play-off win over the Panthers.
The fifth-year safety paced the Seahawks with eight solo tackles against the Panthers, including a bone-crunching blow against Carolina running back Mike Tolbert that knocked the 111-kilogram back about three yards just before the Panthers’ series of field-goal attempts.
Chancellor also ended the game with its exclamation point, clinching the win for Seattle with a fourth-quarter interception he returned for a 90-yard touchdown, the longest in franchise play-off history.
“I don’t know that a strong safety can have a better game than Kam had tonight,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll told the Seattle Times after the game. “He was all over the place.”
Chancellor and the Seahawks (12-4) now host the Green Bay Packers (12-4) in Sunday night’s NFC Championship. The winner will advance to the Super Bowl on February 1.
The dominating win over Carolina shined a spotlight on the Seahawks’s defensive enforcer, who often has to share the spotlight with fellow standouts in the secondary Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman.
It was poetic justice for Chancellor to star in the game after not receiving All-Pro honours alongside his defensive backfield mates. “It’s disappointing that he didn’t get the accolades that he deserved this year,” Sherman said. “I think every year he gets snubbed more than anybody else.”
Chancellor, 26, had hip surgery in the off season, then battled ankle, hip and groin injuries throughout the first half of the regular season, struggling to play at his normal level. He had to sit out home victories over the Oakland Raiders and New York Giants.
After his recovery, Chancellor returned to the line-up and became a major force during the Seahawks’s second-half run, where they won nine of their final 10 regular-season games to snatch the NFC West title away from the Arizona Cardinals and snag the NFC’s No 1 overall seed for the play-offs.
Next up is a showdown with the Packers as Chancellor will be asked to deliver some more bone-crushing blows to the hard-running Eddie Lacy and also defend against their deep threats Jordy Nelson and Davante Adams.
Lacy and Chancellor combined for a monster collision during their Week 1 meeting, a hit that the Green Bay running back has not forgotten.
“Definitely one of the hardest hitters I ever ran into,” Lacy said this week.
agray@thenational.ae
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