Seahawks WR Golden Tate recalls monster hit on Sean Lee

Former Seattle Seahawks receiver Golden Tate had several memorable plays in his breakout 2012 season, none more enduring than the controversial game-winning " Fail Mary " touchdown catch against the Green Bay Packers . We're not going to talk about that again, other than the established fact that Tate caught it.

The week prior to that Monday night madness was a different controversy involving Tate. In Seattle's blowout win over the Dallas Cowboys , Tate rocked linebacker Sean Lee's world with a wicked block on a Russell Wilson scramble. If you don't remember what happened, let us jog your memory.

Tate wasn't flagged for the hit, and indeed the Cowboys got dinged for an unnecessary roughness penalty when Bruce Carter shoved Russell Wilson while he was out of bounds.

Blogging the Boys ' RJ Ochoa interviewed Tate on Friday and brought up that play. Here is Tate's story about the aftermath of what he did to Lee, and how much hate he received from Cowboys fans.

"I didn't realize it was going to have that type of effect through the sports world for so long," Tate said. "It's something that still pops up. Right around then is when my football career started to change for the better, between that play and the Hail Mary catch against Green Bay.

"One thing I do know for sure after that Sean Lee hit was that I was probably the most hated man in the state of Texas," he continued. "To do that to your beloved Sean Lee, I had all types of hate coming my way from every social media outlet. It was actually a legal hit at that time. I did not get flagged, I did not get in trouble by any means, but I still got fined for some reason—to this day I don't understand. Per rule, it was completely legal; my team thought it was legal.

"I think Jerry Jones made a call into Mr. [Roger] Goodell or whoever it is at the NFL and said, 'Hey, you better fine this cat.' I got fined the max, which was like $21,000. As a third-year player, my first ever offense, and they did not take a dime away from it; they took it all. Christmas was a little thin that year."

Just to clear things up, Tate was fined $21,000 because the NFL believed he should've been called for an illegal blindside block. And despite what Tate said, $21,000 was actually the minimum and not the maximum. NFL on FOX rules analyst Mike Pereira said at the time that it should've been a flag, keeping in mind these were the oh-so-hated replacement officials. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones did call for a fine after the game , although I don't know if he had Goodell on speed dial.

The full video can be watched below. There's an interesting tidbit from Tate at the end about who he's rooting for in the Seahawks-Lions matchup on Monday.