Seahawks Swoop Past the Bills : Seattle: A 51-yard, fourth-quarter pass play, Krieg-to-Williams, provides a 17-16 victory.

With one play, John L. Williams turned a personally miserable night into something special.

Until Dave Krieg and Williams combined on Seattle’s longest play of the season, a 51-yard touchdown pass with 5:38 remaining Monday night, Williams, the Seahawks fullback, couldn’t get out of his own way, much less away from Buffalo’s tacklers. But his big play lifted the Seahawks past the sputtering Buffalo Bills, 17-16.

“He was in a spot where I thought he might be,” Krieg said. “I was hoping we’d do something like that.

“I waved him up and he caught it. The linebacker was on him tight. We’ve done that before.”

It was a fine improvisation.

“You look to do it by design, if you can,” Krieg said.

“We finally made some plays,” Seahawks coach Chuck Knox said after his team snapped a four-game slide. “At the end, when we had to have it against what I think is one of the best defenses in football, John L. made it.”

Williams made just as quick a dash out of the dressing room, refusing to talk to reporters.

“We have had good effort but we haven’t made the plays you have to make to win,” Knox added. “We made them tonight.”

Krieg made many of them, particularly on the touchdown to Williams. In his first start after being benched for two games, Krieg avoided a heavy rush and lobbed the ball over linebacker Ray Bentley. Williams grabbed it at the 35, rumbled down the right sideline, got a block from Brian Blades and ran over Nate Odomes and into the end zone.

“We were in a ‘red dog,’ a five-man blitz,” Bentley said. “He was my man all the way. He went into the flat and cut upfield. I thought I had good position but he has good speed, and he just ran away from me.”

Earlier, Krieg hit rookie tight end Travis McNeal on a similar play for 48 yards, the team’s biggest play of 1989 until the game-winner.

The loss damaged Buffalo’s chances of catching Denver for the best record in the AFC. The Bills (8-5) still lead the AFC East by one game over Miami.

“There is no way in the world we should lose games like that,” Buffalo nose tackle Fred Smerlas said. “You can’t have guys throw dink passes for big plays.

“We had the game by six points and they hadn’t scored since the first quarter. We have to go for the jugular when we’ve got them down.”

Seattle (5-8) clinched the victory--and Buffalo’s fourth successive road loss--when M. L. Johnson recovered a fumble by Larry Kinnebrew.

“We had a minus-14 turnover ratio, and that is not our team,” Knox said. “Tonight, we got one of those turnovers when we needed it.”

Buffalo had taken a 16-10 lead on field goals of 32, 40 and 43 yards by Scott Norwood. But he missed from 48 yards just before Krieg hit Williams.

Earlier, defensive end Art Still made the first interception of his career to set up a field goal, and Jim Kelly hit Andre Reed, the AFC’s leading receiver, for a 61-yard score.

Seattle moved smartly to its opening score, a 29-yard field goal by Norm Johnson. Krieg hit Curt Warner for 13 yards and Steve Largent for 24, extending the NFL’s all-time leading receiver’s record consecutive-game streak with a catch to 174.

Then Krieg and McNeal combined on the 48-yarder.

Paul Skansi caught an 11-yard pass before Warner scored from the 1, just his third touchdown this season--he’s averaged 10 in his five full seasons.

Largent continued his heroics when he ran left, untouched, into the end zone for the extra point after Norm Johnson stumbled.