Steve Kelley / Times staff columnist
Kitna makes the difference, gets his revenge

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CINCINNATI — Everybody was coming after him, and quarterback Jon Kitna must have felt like a trailer park in those last seconds before the tornado touches down.

There were more Seahawks coming on the blitz than there were Bengals to block them. And Kitna was caught. The wall was collapsing on him. Hawks defensive end Brandon Mitchell got a hand on the football, loosening it from Kitna's grip.

It was the middle of the fourth quarter. Third-and-two near midfield. The Bengals trailed by four and needed this first down.

The ball was slipping out of Kitna's hand just as he saw Seahawks cornerback Willie Williams slip and Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson cutting from right to left, running free in the Seahawks' secondary.

"I talk about the hand of God working all the time," Kitna said in an almost-empty Bengals locker room. "I don't expect everybody to like that or understand that, but on that play, I run into Brandon, and I'm fumbling the ball all over the place, and that's taking even more time.

"I don't know how I didn't get hit. I don't know how I even got it off. I should have never gotten it off. I threw the ball with no laces. The laces were turned out. I ended up throwing something that looked like a shot put."

It was more like a fluttering Frisbee that hit Johnson in stride and ended up as the winning 53-yard touchdown pass. It was a play from the playgrounds in Tacoma.

Remember it.

It was the difference in yesterday's 27-24 Bengals win over Seattle. It might be the difference in December between a division championship and the offseason.

And it was Kitna's revenge.

"I had no grip on the ball, man. It was just sitting in my hand," Kitna said. "But he was so wide open I just had to get it out there."

This was the Jon Kitna we got glimpses of in five seasons with Seattle. The Kitna who proved to Dennis Erickson he could be the starting Seahawks quarterback. And the Kitna who led Seattle to an 8-2 start in Mike Holmgren's first year.

But the relationship between Kitna and Holmgren soured. Three years ago, Holmgren designated Matt Hasselbeck as his quarterback of the future, and Kitna left for Cincinnati and free agency.

Their history made yesterday's success even sweeter. Kitna completed 19 of 31 passes for 240 yards, two touchdowns. He didn't throw an interception and finished with an impressive 106.9 quarterback rating.

"You can't hide the fact that this game meant more," Kitna said. "I mean, this was my old team. There's no question that I have a lot of respect for him (Holmgren) and what he's done in this league and his opinion. But I think I've gotten over some of that."

In the end, in Seattle, football no longer was fun for Kitna. Practices were chores. Sundays were tense. He thought too much.

"Since right before our Cleveland game (four weeks ago) I really felt like I've had a breakthrough spiritually," Kitna said. "Even though I had forgiven Coach Holmgren for everything that happened in Seattle, I hadn't dealt with the fact that I wasn't the same player after I left him.

"Now I feel very in control of this offense. This is my sixth year in this (West Coast) system. I'm working with the same set of characters now for the last three years. I never had that before. I always had new receivers in Seattle every year. Now it's basically the same guys. I understand these guys. I know their body language. And they know me."

Kitna studies scripture like a Capuchin monk. He laces biblical references into every football discussion. It is impossible to separate his religion from his profession. But it was the tough-minded football player who punished his former team yesterday.

Kitna played relaxed, as if he were back in Ellensburg leading Central over Western.

"Earlier this year I didn't have that carefree spirit any more. I didn't have that leadership ability," he said. "It had kind of been repressed in me, and I didn't realize that. But I was doing some reading before the Cleveland game, and it help me deal with that.

"I started to feel so much better. Started to feel like I used to feel. When I played those last five games of '98 before Mike got there, I didn't care about anything. I didn't know about quarterback ratings, and then I started getting caught up in all those numbers. And that wasn't me."

The Bengals won at Cleveland that day, their first win of the season and are 3-1 since Kitna became Kitna again.

Yesterday was Kitna at his best. Magically pulling plays out of the air. Picking relentlessly on backup Williams. Taking advantage of a depleted defense that was missing linebacker Chad Brown, cornerback Ken Lucas, middle linebacker Randall Godfrey and defensive tackle Norman Hand.

"I used to not care about anything but wins and losses, but I had lost a part of that," Kitna said. "I'm a very analytical guy anyway, and I got to the point in my last couple of years in Seattle I was always trying to defend myself. I kept thinking in my mind, 'Hey, I'm not playing that bad.' It wasn't me.

"I just did some reading about dealing with the hurts and the wounds in your life, and those were things I never had dealt with. Some of those things hurt me, and I needed to be restored to who I used to be."

Kitna was better than Hasselbeck. He played mistake-free. He flung winning Frisbees, made somethings out of nothings.

He enjoyed himself and punished his former coach in the process.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com

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