Seahawks’ Michael Dickson taught his Australian parents what a safety is after his fake punt

Michael Dickson provided Seattle Seahawks fans with quite the thrill last Sunday, running for a first down out of Seattle’s end zone on a fake punt late in the fourth quarter of the Seahawks’ 28-14 win over the Detroit Lions.

Carroll: ‘There was a couple of cuss words’ during Dickson’s trick play

The direction given to the Australian-born punter for the play was to let the clock run down by running around the end zone then eventually step out of bounds to take a safety, but Dickson saw an opening and went for it. It was a risky move – had he not gotten a first down after crossing the goal line, the Lions would have been handed the ball with an extremely short field.

Taking a safety is one of the more obscure strategies you’ll see in football, and it’s not something that is all that easy to explain (although 710 ESPN Seattle’s Dave Wyman does a great job of doing exactly that in this video). But when Dickson filled in his parents back in Australia on the ins and outs of the play, he had to start with the very basics.

“They still didn’t really know what a safety was,” Dickson said Thursday night on 710 ESPN Seattle’s Hawks Live, “so I kinda talked them through that yesterday – and they realized how dumb I was for going for it.”

Michael Dickson (@mdcksn) joins Hawks Live right now on @710ESPNSeattle! pic.twitter.com/IYttBFGKdg

— Curtis Rogers (@AKidFromKent) November 2, 2018

That’s not to say that Dickson’s parents are completely in the dark about the rules of football, though.

“They know a lot about American football,” said Dickson, who grew up playing Australian rules football. “Originally they didn’t know at all. They got, like, ‘American Football Rules for Dummies’ and books like that, tried to learn it as much as they could.”

Living his dream

In addition to breaking down everything there is to know about his big run from last Sunday, Dickson also spent time during his in-person interview on Hawks Live to express his amazement at what his life has become after the Seahawks made him a fifth-round draft pick last April and he won the punter job in training camp.

“Sometimes I forget I’m on the other side of the world living out my dream. I looked down today, actually, saw ‘Seahawks’ on my hoodie – I can’t believe I’m playing for the Seahawks. Honestly it’s insane to me,” he said.

Getting the chance to play in Seattle is something he hoped to get after meeting with Seahawks general manager John Schneider following his pro day at the University of Texas last spring.

“I got on really well with Schneider at my pro day. We had lunch together afterwards and I was like, if I could choose I’d want it to be the Seahawks (to draft me) because of him and Pete Carroll. The more I’ve been here, the more I’ve learned. I didn’t even know all this stuff about the Seahawks that I’m learning now and about (Carroll’s) coaching philosophy.

“I’m so lucky to have ended up here.”

You can hear the full interview with Dickson from Hawks Live in this podcast.

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