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One was surfing the Pacific blue. The other was proving what "Brown" could do for you.

Both will be black-and-blue today. But with that will come with a feeling of satisfaction for knowing that neither did anything terribly wrong to deny their team a much-needed victory.

Junior Seau (19 NFL seasons) and Rosevelt Colvin (10 seasons) were out of football when last week dawned, Seau riding surfboards and watching his kids play high school sports in his native San Diego, and Colvin overseeing the UPS stores he owns in his native Indianapolis.

Then the call went out to both, Colvin first, to come to the aid of their former team as linebacker after linebacker fell by the wayside to injuries.

Neither Colvin, 31, nor Seau, 39, expected realistically to be major contributors to the Patriots' effort in Sunday's game at Seattle. But fate has a way of intervening in matters of this sort, and with injuries taking Tedy Bruschi and Mike Vrabel off the field (Bruschi for the duration after making a tackle of Maurice Morris at the Patriots' 46 with 13:51 left in the first half), Seau and Colvin found their way in. Neither said it was like they never left. They were just happy they could just help hold the fort while the Patriots could mount a comeback and beat the Seahawks, 24-21, pulling into a three-way tie for the AFC East lead in the process.

"I've been playing this game for 19 years, so it shouldn't be a big surprise," Seau said of his ability to contribute on very short notice. "But the guys in here did a heck of a job of protecting me and doing the things that we needed to do out there."

"I thought I'd be just getting a couple of reps and knocking the rust off," said Colvin. "But to be thrown out there like that, the rust had to come off fairly quickly because I recognized that they were trying to go at me."

The statistics posted by the two Rescue Rangers weren't storybook stuff. Seau had one tackle credited to him and Colvin one quarterback hit. Seau also had a few adventures in pass coverage - first when Seattle went up 14-3 on a 10-yard touchdown pass from Seneca Wallace to John Carlson with 12:30 left in the half. The crossing pattern drew Seau in coverage, the veteran fell short of making the play, and his post-tumble expletive pretty much told the story.

Then, on a short pass to Deion Branch that turned into a 63-yard gain in the third quarter, Seau was turned inside-out by the former Patriot to get across field and deep into Patriot territory.

"Branch did a heck of a job throwing me a little fake," Seau said. "I went surfing and that was it."

"Once I caught it," said Branch, "I looked up and saw Junior, and I remembered that he just signed back yesterday, so I looked at him and I knew I could beat him."

The point was not for Seau and Colvin to save the day with the sort of play they may have provided five years ago. The point was to hold the fort, and they did. No one knows what might be in store for the injury-depleted Patriots' defense over the last three weeks of the season, but for now, the quest for the playoffs continues unabated, thanks in a large part to the old guys who returned to the fold.

"When I left my kids going to the volleyball games and the football games and coming over here, that stuff was over," Seau said. "It's time to play football."

"You've just got to get back on the bike, and then you get going," Colvin added. "A week ago, I was shipping packages. Now we're the stories Junior surfing, I was delivering mail and now I'm playing football again. Right now, I would be putting my kids to bed, and getting ready to cuddle up with my wife and having a nightcap. But we'll deal with it." Neither of the newcomers will have any time to re-acclimate themselves with Foxboro, either. As soon as the game was over Sunday, the Patriots were California-bound, set to spend another week training at San Jose State University and preparing for the next week's game at Oakland.

"It's going to be a great vacation," Colvin said. "Hopefully we can prepare well and put ourselves in a position to win another game."

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.