Jabari Greer can still hear the roar. He couldn’t quite feel Seattle tremble. But he remembers the noise. The crescendo as Marshawn Lynch bounced off one tackle, then a second, then his. The soundtrack to one of the most iconic runs in NFL history.

He remembers a lot about that day, Jan. 8, 2011, but most of all the play it is known for, because he lived it. He was on the field for it. He played an unfortunate role in it. And because his son won’t let him forget.

Greer was a starting cornerback on that New Orleans Saints team, the one that went to Seattle expecting to win and instead left devastated by the Beast Quake. Now he’s an NFL analyst for TSN in Toronto. So occasionally he’ll make an off-hand comment, reacting to a game. “Ooh, that cornerback should make that tackle,” he might say.

But where Greer sees innocuous commentary, his teenager sees bait.

“Oh, yeah, kinda like you shoulda made that tackle against Marshawn Lynch,” the 15-year-old might shoot back.

Whatever the mischievous joke, Lynch is invariably the punchline. And whenever he is, Greer’s up-close view of the play is the inescapable context.

With Beast Mode back in Seattle, and with another Seahawks playoff run near, replays of his legendary moment have returned. As they flooded screens of all kinds across North America, Greer shared his unique perspective with Yahoo Sports. “That was one of the top three loudest moments I’ve ever experienced in football,” he says. “It was deafening. It was intimidating. And you knew – I kinda felt I was in the middle of something. I was in the middle of something special.”

This is the story of Lynch’s seismic run, as told by one of the many defensive players who could do nothing about it.

‘There’s no way we’re gonna lose’

“First of all,” Greer says, “there’s no way we should be traveling.” Not as an 11-5 menace, with what Greer calls “one of our best teams.” And certainly not to a 7-9 pretender who snuck into the playoffs out of a feeble division. But rules are rules, and much like the 2019 Seahawks will travel to Philly despite winning two more regular-season games than the Eagles, the 2010 Saints hit the road.

Still, though, Greer remembers thinking: “There’s no way we’re gonna lose.”

And sure enough, as 10-point favorites, they took an early 17-7 lead. Seattle, after all, was ranked 30th out of 32 teams in DVOA. It had the league’s fourth-worst offense. It had no business being in the playoffs. A 10-point deficit to the defending Super Bowl champs should have drained Qwest Field of any and all hope.

Yet the game suddenly developed into a shootout. Matt Hasselback threw three touchdowns. The Seahawks went up 14, and clung to a four-point lead with under four minutes remaining in the fourth.

That’s when Hasselbeck called 17 Power. Lynch thought, “Oh my god, I’ve been trying to get a power for so long!” Hasselbeck told him to “hit it downhill.” Lynch did that and much, much more.

Nine years ago, Marshawn Lynch broke away from the New Orleans Saints in one of the most improbable touchdown runs in NFL history. (AP) More

‘Why can’t they get him down?’

The Saints, Greer says, were in zone coverage. “He breaks through our defensive line,” Greer recalls. “And I wonder, like, wow — they shoulda made that tackle.”

Then, Greer remembers, Lynch “breaks through our linebacker corps. And next thing I know, I see him coming straight at me.”

Greer, No. 33 in white, had never tackled Lynch before in an official game. He had, though, been teammates and locker-room neighbors with the running back in Buffalo. They’d come face-to-face in practice. Greer remembers Lynch as someone who “turned it on during the game. But you knew that if you brushed up against him in practice, you were gonna feel it.”

Still, though, as he collapsed down from his left corner position to meet Lynch ... “I’m thinking, obviously, it’s gonna be an easy tackle.

“I go and try to make a tackle at like a 45 degree angle, and just literally melt like soft butter, man. And next thing I knew, he keeps on running, and then he stiff arms a teammate of mine, and next thing I know, the stadium is going crazy.

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