An electrocharged edge rusher who drives a hybrid and hikes mountains just to throw up? As the Redskins found out, Patrick Kerney is Seattle's most unconventional weapon

Kerney (above), the NFC leader in sacks, showed Washington's Ladell Betts that he's no slouch against the run, either. Robert Beck/SI

In the moments before kickoff, some players listen to metal and some listen to rap. Some talk to God and some talk to themselves.

Seattle Seahawks defensive end Patrick Kerney wraps a black graphite glove around his neck, wires it to the portable neuromuscular stimulator in his locker and sends small currents of electricity into his body. He literally energizes himself. "It fires you up -- your adrenal glands," Kerney says. He also freaks out some of his less tech-oriented teammates, who eye Kerney skeptically, as though he might be part man and part machine.

When Kerney goes home to his house in Bellevue, Wash., he climbs into a hyperbaric chamber to infuse his body with oxygen. Then he falls asleep under silver-threaded "earthing" sheets plugged into an electrical outlet, thus ostensibly neutralizing free radicals, those highly reactive particles that can damage cells. "I know this is going to make me sound ridiculous," says Kerney.

That might be true if he were not making so many others look ridiculous on the field. In his ninth NFL season Kerney, 31, led the NFC with 14 1/2 sacks, and in the wild-card playoff game at Qwest Field last Saturday the visiting Washington Redskins assigned two and sometimes three men to keep him out of their quarterback's face. It was no use. With his adrenal glands firing and no free radicals disrupting him, Kerney was a force, amassing seven tackles and four quarterback pressures in the Seahawks' 35-14 victory. This weekend he travels to Green Bay to face Brett Favre and the Packers in the divisional playoffs. The neuromuscular stimulator will be making the trip.

Kerney had a large role in wrecking the NFL's most inspiring plotline. The Redskins were playing for Sean Taylor, their teammate who was slain in late November. They were playing behind Todd Collins, a quarterback who until December had not started an NFL game in a decade. Washington, which had won four straight simply to reach the playoffs, took a one-point lead in the fourth quarter and, after recovering a kickoff that the Seahawks' return team somehow failed to touch, had third down at the Seattle 12-yard line with 11:44 left, and a chance to put the game away.

Washington positioned right tackle Stephon Heyer and fullback Mike Sellers across from Kerney, 604 pounds of pass protection. The Seahawks' end split them as if they were straw men and swiped at Collins's right hand, forcing an incomplete pass and a field goal attempt. Shaun Suisham's 30-yarder hooked left, and the Redskins lost their juju. Seattle scored three straight touchdowns -- two on interception returns -- to put an end to Washington's march. "You hurt more because you know the cause was bigger than this game," said Redskins wide receiver Santana Moss afterward, invoking Taylor's memory.

Kerney skipped off the field with blood on the bridge of his nose, cuts along both arms and eye black smeared across his cheeks. Turns out he didn't hurt his nose on any of the Redskins' double- and triple-teams but on a pregame head butt with fellow Seahawks outside the locker room. "It felt good," he said, poking at the fresh scab.

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