Seahawks Spotlight: Nick Vannett already planning 2nd TD celebration
Nov 28, 2017, 10:04 AM | Updated: 12:55 pm
Nick Vannett is featured in the Seahawks Spotlight, a daily interview with a Seattle player that airs at 5 p.m. on "Danny, Dave and Moore."
The spike that followed the Nick Vannett’s first NFL touchdown was impressive.
It’s just not quite what was expected considering teammate Luke Willson hinted at the possibility of a shotgun celebration in which the football would be treated as if it were a canned, carbonated adult beverage.
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“Stay tuned for that,” Vannett said Monday on “Danny, Dave and Moore.”
“I just wanted to keep it simple.”
It was Vannett’s first touchdown after all, and listening to him talk about it during the Seahawks Spotlight made it clear how much that meant to the tight end from Ohio State who is now in his third season.
“It was honestly more of a sigh of relief,” Vannett said. “Honestly, I didn’t think I would see the day.”
He broke the seal as part of what is the league’s highest-scoring group of tight ends.
Jimmy Graham has eight touchdowns this season, not only most on the team, but second-most among all pass catchers behind only Houston’s DeAndre Hopkins. Willson has scored three touchdowns and Vannett now has a score.
All that scoring punch is helping offset the fact that Seattle can’t run the ball when it gets the ball inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. It’s not like they’re great outside the 20, either. But the Seahawks are absolutely awful when they get in close. Russell Wilson has scored the team’s only two rushing touchdowns in the red zone this season, both coming in the past two games.
That has made the tight ends a welcome option in the red zone, and more than that, the tight ends have become the emotional weather vane for the offense. Russell Wilson is the most valuable player on the offense, and receiver Doug Baldwin is the most experienced here in Seattle, but it’s the tight ends who’ve provided the levity this year first by implementing “Techno Thursday” and then by adding short-shorts to the overall effect.
That camaraderie may be evident the next time Vannett scores, too. He provided a hint of what he’s thinking about miming after another trip to the end zone.
“I think I’m going to reach into a cooler and start throwing beers out to everyone,” Vannett said. “We all do a team-shotgun. Just in case they’re dishing out fines, I’m not the only one who’ll get a fine. I don’t want to be the only one to get blamed for that.”
Nick, we’ll all be waiting. Again.
