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Victory 'slipped away'
But a 60-yard Green Bay Packer scoring bomb, Lynn Dickey to Steve Odom, completely turned things around at Milwaukee County Stadium and the expansion Hawks went home with their fifth straight defeat.
The Dickey-Odom bomb came late in the third quarter with the Seahawks leading 20-7. Seattle still was six points in front after the score - but nearly everyone agreed that the long play turned the game around.
'Couldn't sustain'
"That was the turning point," said Seattle's quarterback Jim Zorn.
"When they got that long touchdown, it got them all fired up and we just weren't able to sustain what we had." Which was, it appeared, an historic first victory.
Odom, the speedster from Utah, said, "Sometimes this is a game of emotion and psychology. When we scored on a big play like that maybe they put their heads between their legs. They knew we had been driving on them all day, moving the ball.
"They probably knew we would make up six points in a hurry after that, and we did."
The Packers marched 71 yards to their go-ahead touchdown with 7:42 to play, Barty Smith scoring from six yards out after Dickey had completed big passes of 11 to Smith and 21 to Ken Payne. Chester Marcol's conversion gave the Packers the lead and they scored an insurance touchdown with 2:42 remaining.
The game-turning bomb resulted from some mixed-up Seattle coverage. Payne and Odom lined up in a double slot to the right and when ex-Packer Al Matthews moved over to cover Payne, Odom slanted into the vacated area over the middle to take the short pass and outrun the rest.
Odom said Payne, who caught six passes for 64 yards, was the primary receiver on the touchdown bomb.
"But when they roll the strong safety (Matthews) to the strong side on Kenny, I should be open," Odom said. "When I saw Al go that way as we lined up, I kind of smiled.
"I saw Al roll to the deep right, one-third of the field. Kenny ran a hitch, six or seven yards straight out, and turned around. I slanted over the middle where Al had been in the hole between the weak safety and the strong safety." And, good-bye.
The Seahawks had seized the initiative after Green Bay took a 7-0 lead late in the first quarter. Don Dufek blocked a Packer punt and Steve Raible, another rookie, retrieved the ball and ran 26 yards for the touchdown. John Leypoldt field goals of 48 and 44 yards gave the Hawks a 13-7 halftime lead ad they expanded that to 20-7 on Ralph Nelson's third-quarter TD, following a 29-yard pass interception return by Ed Bradley.
And then victory just slipped away.
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