Things changed ahead of the fourth quarter in the Seattle Seahawks Week 11 victory over the San Francisco 49ers. San Francisco was winning, and quarterback Geno Smith had thrown another atrocious interception early in the third quarter. Seattle looked to be heading to another loss - their fifth in six games - while the defense was playing well but the offense wasn't.
Then Geno Smith saw KJ Wright and the quarterback felt outraged. Wright is one of the better linebackers in Seattle history, and when he teamed with Bobby Wagner from 2012 through 2020, the two were one of the best inside linebacker duos in the history of the NFL. Wright left in free agency in 2021 and played one year for the Las Vegas Raiders. That was forgivable for 12s.
This past offseason, though, Wright might have done something that some Seahawks fans will never forgive. He went to work as a quality control control with Seattle's NFC West rival, the San Francisco 49ers. To be fair, Wright wanted to get into coaching, Seattle did not have a job for him, and he went to a team that did. He can't be blamed too much.
Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith fill with rage by seeing KJ Wright on the 49ers sideline
Still, an athlete is going to use any inspiration they can to become even more motivated to do something great. Smith wants to win, of course. That is his job and he seems quite happy to play in Seattle. But seeing a former teammate and franchise great where the colors of one of the Seahawks' biggest rivals? That peeved Smith off.
Smith was a guest on Richard Sherman's podcast earlier this week and the former Seahawks cornerback asked the current quarterback to walk Sherman through the final Seattle drive. The team needed to go 80 yards with a bit over two minutes left in the game and score a touchdown to put themselves into a position to win the game. 11 plays later, Smith and the offense did score that TD.
Smith told Sherman that he was smiling when he ran onto the field to start the final drive. He added, "I knew we were going to win. Sometime in the third quarter, I looked over at their bench and saw KJ standing there. I was like what the…? We have to beat these guys. When I saw KJ, it just kind of pissed me off. He’s a Seahawk. He shouldn’t have those (49ers) colors on."
While the 49ers likely do not regret hiring Wright (and they shouldn't; Wright is a good guy who deserves his chance at coaching if that is what he wants to do), they probably could also foresee that bringing Wright to the 49ers might inspire some Seattle players to be even better against San Francisco. Maybe San Francisco assumed they were still the better team, so the Seahawks being more motivated wouldn't matter. As it turns out, it did when Seattle defeated the 49ers in Week 11.