Bad Memories Finally Pass for Jackson

SEATTLE, Jan. 14 -- He comes into games that matter like a flashing light, jumping, clapping, thumping on his chest. If there is one player the Seattle Seahawks never worry about motivating, it's their best wide receiver, Darrell Jackson. He seems to do that all on his own.

Saturday, in the biggest football game this city has seen in more than two decades, Jackson walked in little circles, pumped his fists and jumped. He always has a feeling about days like this. He feels somehow they are going to come to him. He was going to be ready.

"You know how Darrell Jackson is, he's the ultimate competitor," said Seattle wide receiver Bobby Engram, perhaps Jackson's best friend on the team. "He's been hyped up a lot these last few days."

Jackson needed the breaks to go his way. Some of his biggest stages have given him his greatest disappointments. Last year, in Seattle's lone playoff game against the Rams, he ran over the middle on the Seahawks' first play of the game, watched a pass hit him in the shoulder pads, bounce in the air and settle in the arms of a St. Louis defender. The Seahawks never quite recovered.

Such a memory could not burn in his mind forever.

So then came Saturday, which began poorly for the Seahawks. League MVP Shaun Alexander tumbled headfirst to the ground and left with a concussion. The offense that was going to be built around Seattle's top running back burrowing through the line had to be scrapped. If the Seahawks were going to win, they would have to do so through the air, and they would have to do it with Jackson.

Later, Seahawks Coach Mike Holmgren would look back on the day with a little smile and say that Jackson "stepped up." But it was really more than that. For a large swath of the dreary afternoon, it was Jackson who took the Seahawks to a game from the Super Bowl.

The statistics sheet said he had nine catches for 143 yards, but it seemed as if he had the Seahawks' entire offensive output Saturday.

"Darrell was very much ready to play this football game," Holmgren said.

He has a kind of football telepathy with his quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck. They have been together for five seasons and there is a comfort in that, one built from so many lazy afternoons when they would linger after practice. The quarterback would scramble around pretending to be lost, creating chaos and then heaving the desperate pass that always would settle into the receiver's arms.

Then when the games came, that understanding always was there.

Saturday, Hasselbeck was in trouble with the Redskins pursuing. He looked for help, saw nothing, then looked again. Slicing along the goal line was his favorite receiver, eyes locked. Immediately, Hasselbeck's mind raced. He had seen this during the last game of the 2001-2002 regular season against the Kansas City Chiefs, and Jackson was in the exact same spot. Hasselbeck threw low that day, and Jackson scooped it in just above the turf. Touchdown.