Buccaneers center Joe Hawley has accused a Seahawks player of spitting in his face on Sunday during Tampa Bay's 14-5 victory over Seattle. According to ESPN, Hawley talked about the incident during his own radio show on Thursday and claimed that he thinks the player who spit on him was rookie defensive tackle Jarran Reed.
"Yeah, I think that's who it was," Hawley said. "They were hitting me late and then one guy got up, and when I came up all fired up, he actually spit in my face after one of the plays. And that really got me fired up because I just don't think that should be a part of the game at all." The 302-pound amateur detective added that he wasn't 100 percent sure if it was Reed who spit on him.
During one moment in the game, Hawley was restrained after Seattle prevented Tampa from converting a first down on a 3rd-and-2 play. "I mean, it's one thing thing [to be] pushing, shouting, yelling. But as soon as he spit in my face, I was pretty fired up about that," Hawley said. "He's a young guy. I guess he just—that's not the way to do it." There were no flags thrown during their skirmish.
Hawley reasoned that the Seahawks were probably pissed because of Tampa's physicality. "The way we were playing—we decided we were going to play hard and get after them because we knew that's the way they played," Hawley said. "And I think they were surprised when that happened, so they tried to talk about it and then we continued to do it and they started getting chippy with it. I just don't think they were used to the way we were playing, how hard we were playing. I guess they were the only ones who thought they were allowed to play like that."
With their win, Tampa currently sits at 6-5, which puts them half a game behind the Redskins in the wild-card race because of a tie the Redskins had earlier in the season. As for Seattle, they're currently in first in the NFC West by a comfortable margin with a 7-3-1 record. What we're saying is that it isn't inconceivable that these two squads could spit in one another's faces during the playoffs. Stay tuned.
