Hyde's INT 'a play you really can't coach'

Micah Hyde’s left arm was pinned behind Minnesota Vikings receiver Mike Wallace’s right. It was no good to him, out of the play.

So the Green Bay Packers defensive back improvised.

Hyde stretched his right arm midway through the third quarter Sunday night, plucking Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater’s pass like an apple from a tree. The football stuck to Hyde’s right palm, a backhanded interception that made him look something like Spiderman. It was an improbable catch, seemingly defying the laws of physics.

Hyde said he was reminded of days as a captain on his high school’s baseball field. He wasn’t the only one.

“My mom texted me after the game,” Hyde said, “and said, ‘That's why she put me in baseball.’ Those backhand glove saves and all that stuff, just moving your wrists at all different angles. I don't have any idea that's where it's from. I don't know. But I just try to make a play, stick my hand out, and it's probably those sticky gloves that everyone is talking about.”

The turnover set up the Packers with a short field at the Vikings’ 43-yard line, though their possession ended with a fumble Minnesota cornerback Captain Munnerlyn returned for a touchdown.

With a struggling offense, it’s those kind of plays the Packers need their defense to make during their playoff run. Defensive coordinator Dom Capers simply called it a “rare” play. It left Hyde’s teammates impressed.

“That’s just a play you really can’t coach,” rookie cornerback Damarious Randall said. “It’s just an athlete being an athlete. That’s just probably a play, some type of catch he practiced laying down in his bed just messing with the football. That’s something that athletes do.

“It was a hell of a play by a hell of a player. That’s the type of play you’re used to seeing him make. I knew he caught it as soon as I’d seen it live on the field. It was just a hell of a play.”

rwood@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @ByRyanWood