Just days away from the Super Bowl, Chris Clemons and Tarvaris Jackson are teammates on the Seattle Seahawks. In fact, they're two of only six members of the roster who are older than 30. They're veteran leaders, and they say they're friends. But only a few short years ago, Clemons made highlight shows nationwide by posterizing Jackson in a wild-card game between Clemons' Eagles and Jackson's Vikings in 2008.
Clemons rolled his eyes when I asked him about it this week, embarrassed by a play that embarrassed his current teammate.
"It was funny afterwards," Clemons admitted, "but at the time we were trying to win a game."
Clemons says it's been brought up "once or twice" but Jackson isn't so sure.
"We're not going to be friends anymore if he keeps bringing that up," said the backup quarterback. "It kind of pisses me off a little bit that we're still talking about this in 2014."
As Jackson was playfully ranting, another player overheard our conversation and cut in.
"He knocked TJ's socks off, literally," said the teammate, whom we'll keep anonymous due to the sensitive nature of this story. "It's on NFL Films."
"Most of the guys have seen it," Jackson said. "I'm pretty sure he brought it up because a couple of my teammates brought it up to me last week, so he had to bring it to those guys."
So, what happened on that now-infamous — yet legal — body slam?
"It was a bad decision," said Jackson. "I jumped in the air. He was like, 'Why did you feel so light?' I said, 'Because I jumped.' He said, 'Why'd you jump?' I don't know. I had nowhere else to go. I was just trying to make sure that the guy didn't score, but he still scored and it got me on YouTube getting smashed. But that won't happen again."
Clearly, the sore spot has come up in conversation.
"We had that conversation once or twice," said Clemons, "but it was never anything that was out of malice. Once the ball is snapped it's all out, so he understood it the same way I understood it."
"He's a very good guy," Clemens concluded. "We've hung out a few times.
Easy for him to say.
