Kam Chancellor repeats line leap
— -- SEATTLE -- Almost everyone knows about the vicious tackling skills of Seattle Seahawks strong safety Kam Chancellor, but he also showed Saturday night that's he's one heck of a high hurdler.
Chancellor timed his leaps perfectly on back-to-back field goal attempts by the Carolina Panthers at the end of the first half of the divisional round playoff game, jumping over the players at the line of scrimmage and heading straight for Carolina kicker Graham Gano.
"I did that one time, either last year or the year before last, but it was a failed mission. I fell over the center. I hit his leg or hit his back and fell over," Chancellor explained after the Seahawks' 31-17 win. "When we did our film study [for the Panthers], we just [saw] that the guard and the center stayed low, they stayed low on the ground. We just wanted to jump them. We did it in practice, and it looked good, and we just did it in the game."
The first attempt had a false start by Carolina offensive linemen Chris Scott, who probably was shocked to see a 6-foot-3, 230-pound man leaping over everyone.
Chancellor did it again on the second attempt, again timing his run to the line perfectly at the snap and leaping like a gazelle over the linemen.
"I was ready. I was so confident with the call and how it looked in the first jump, I was like let's do it again," said Chancellor, who doesn't know what his high jump measure is.
Gano managed to get the kick off, but he missed it. However, Chancellor did not block the kick and was thus flagged for running into the kicker, a slight bump where Gano fell down.
Gano made the final attempt from 35 yards out to make it 14-10 Seattle at the half. Chancellor didn't attempt a third leap.
Chancellor later gave Seattle a 31-10 lead with 5:55 left in the fourth quarter when he intercepted Cam Newton and returned it 90 yards for a touchdown.
"All I [saw] was green, green means go," Chancellor said after the game.
When asked which player on the field Saturday night was Superman -- himself or Newton -- the Seahawks safety replied, "You know they call me Batman. So he can have the Superman. They call me Batman, Dark Knight."
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