(2) years ago Leonard Weaver had it all. He was a fan favorite. He was on a competitive team that was going places. He was being groomed to replace Mack Strong as the starter. The road to opportunity opened up like a four lane highway, and Leonard without a care in the world was driving alone with the top down and his hair blowing in the wind, right down the center. 1 year later, Leonard Weaver barely made the team. It doesn't even seem possible, but there it was. The fall from grace can be a short unfair trip. At the beginning of the 2006 season Weaver suffered a high ankle sprain and was out for the entire year. This preseason found Weaver fumbling, rusty and unremarkable. The 2007 version of Leonard Weaver came out flatter then an anorexic teenager. But lets stop and think about this for a minute. Is it realistic to expect Weaver to just pick up where he left off a year ago? How many people can leave their job, face months of rehab and return a year later as though nothing happened? Not many. But Weaver made the final cut, and I am delighted with the Seahawks for not giving up on him, and believing in him like some of us fans do.

This new chance for Weaver is like a rebirth. I think he needs an image make-over to go with his return to grace. Weaver has been nicknamed several things, Dream Weaver, Mister Sandman and a few others, but none of them really stuck. The act of stiff arming a defender has also been referred to as many different things but only one has really stuck. Baptism, this has never made any sense to me. The dictionary describes a baptism as a religious sacrament marked by the symbolic use of water. I'm missing the connection... Which makes me wonder if the original creator of the term was thinking "faith healing" but saying baptism out of confusion, as a faith healing sometimes ended with a palm to the forehead of the recipient, who was then caught by members of the mesmerized crowd standing behind them. But you see, even the faith healers were mimicking the the early actions of the Exorcist, who when performing the ceremony to rid the poor helpless soul of the demons therein, would end this grand specter with a hard palm thump to the forehead.

Whether the ceremony itself removed the demon, or the poor wretched recipient decided one hard thump to the forehead was all the exercising they needed to see, remains a mystery. But you can't argue with results.

Weaver needs to return to form and deliver these blows that drew the admiration of all us fans. He needs to run like a wild man and hang onto the ball like a fat man rescuing a pizza from a burning Domino's. We believe in you Leonard. We know you can do it, you know you can do it.

Welcome back, Leonard "The Exorcist" Weaver

This is a re-post in tribute to Leonard Weaver.



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