Most amazing takeaway from start of training camp: Seahawks will be 99% vaccinated
It’s more amazing than screaming fans being back to watch training camp for the first time since 2019.
It’s more important to the health, well-being—and success—of this team in 2021 than All-Pro safety Jamal Adams’ huge, new contract (which the coach said Wednesday is coming “soon,” by the way.)
In our fractured, highly politicized times with less than 50% of the United States population still not fully vaccinated and COVID-19 variants threatening to reignite the pandemic across our country, it is just incredible.
Ninety of the 91 Seahawks players in training camp that began Wednesday have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot.
Coach Pete Carroll revealed that with pride Wednesday. He said all 90 are on schedule to be fully vaccinated by end of August’s first week.
The NFL has been striving for teams to be at least 85% vaccinated. The league has had teams boasting about getting to 90%. The state of Washington’s fully-vaccinated rate of 57.4% was ninth-highest in the country as of Wednesday.
The Seahawks will be at 99%.
King County has one of the nation’s higher rates of vaccination; 76% of county residents were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, per the Public Health department for Seattle and King County.
The Seahawks are 23 percentage points above that.
“By the time we get everybody processed we will have one guy who isn’t vaccinated,” Carroll said.
“We are really thrilled about that. Our guys have made an extraordinary effort to take care of one another. I mean, the statement that they made—particularly the guys who were uncertain about what to do—they made a decision based on their team, as well as themselves. They wanted to do what’s best for everybody and what would be the safest for everyone.
“It’s a marvelous statement that our guys made.”
Carroll had set a goal of 100% player vaccination by training camp. The one player who is not getting vaccinated, “he’s got real personal reasons why. It goes back to the family, and stuff,” Carroll said.
“We are going to take care of him throughout.”
Two different worlds
The NFL’s latest policies on COVID-19 vaccinations for the 2021 season set up two different worlds for players who are vaccinated and those who are not.
The league is being careful not to mandate vaccines for players. The NFL’s approach is like other sports’, including baseball: give vaccinated players pre-pandemic freedoms and a return to basically normal, to hopefully entice or convince those reluctant or unwilling to get the vaccine.
The NFL has agreed with its players’ union that fully vaccinated players will no longer have to be tested daily, as they were for all of the 2020 preseason, regular season and postseason. Vaccinated players will not have to wear masks at team facilities, as they did all last year into this year. They will not be subject to quarantine after exposure to a COVID-positive individual. They will have no travel restrictions. They may eat in the team dining areas and use the sauna and steam room. They also will not be subject to capacity limits in team weight rooms. They will be allowed to interact with vaccinated family and friends during travel.
Unvaccinated players must do the opposite — in other words, abide by 2020 pandemic restrictions in all team and travel settings.
While eliminating restrictions for the vaccinated, the league is sensitive about avoiding any impression that players might be in danger of losing a roster spot if they are not vaccinated this season.
Incidentally, while watching practice instead of participating in it Wednesday, 35-year-old Pro Bowl veteran left tackle Duane Brown was the only player in sight on the field wearing a mask.
Now that his players are 99% vaccinated, Carroll feels Seattle has a distinct competitive advantage over other teams with lower rates that will be essentially divided in the way they train, eat, learn and live all season.
“I’m thinking we do. I mean, I’d hate to be in an 80% situation, or something like that. I wouldn’t want to be there,” Carroll said. “We fought very hard to work with our guys to make sense of it. We worked with our players to make sense of it, and to make the commitment.
“I think it’s a statement of a really committed, smart group of guys that know.”
Carroll described how by NFL protocols this season any player, even a vaccinated one, must quarantine for a minimum of 10 days if he tests positive for COVID-19.
“Ten days you are out, immediately,” the coach said. “We know that vaccinated guys are not going to be as sick, and are not going to have issues in the hospital (if they are to be exposed to the coronavirus). But the fact they are carrying the virus means they have to be quarantined. So you lose them for 10 days—and that’s not to mention the people that are the close contacts, as well. It can impact you, severely.
“We want to play football. And these guys want to play. They don’t just want to be on the team.
“We are fortunate that we were so successful last year. Our guys take a lot of pride in that, and so they’ve listened and they’ve made these choices together.”
(Way) extra testing
About 45 of Seattle’s 91 players flew from other states to report to training camp Tuesday. Those include states with vaccination rates below 50%: Florida (48.6%, according to Our World in Data), Texas (43.6%), Georgia (38.5%), Arkansas (36.1%) and Mississippi (34.4%).
“It’s a really big deal: We came back to camp and everybody tested negative,” Carroll said.
The NFL is requiring vaccinated players get tested once every two weeks.
“We aren’t going to do that,” Carroll said. “That’s not enough.
“We need to look after these guys. ...Of course we are going to stay in compliance with the league. But we are going to go beyond that.”
Carroll said the Seahawks have agreed among themselves to test for COVID-19, at team expense, over five consecutive days. That began Tuesday with reporting day for training camp. Testing will continue through Saturday. It’s to ensure nobody caught the coronavirus while traveling to training camp.
“The league isn’t asking us to do that. We are doing that on our own, and guys are willing to do that, too,” Carroll said.
“That’s a great statement, too.”
He praised every one of his 91 players for doing the right thing, “for the right reasons.”
Carroll has championed COVID-19 testing and, this year when it became available, vaccination as a competitive advantages for the Seahawks—and as a personal crusade. He is the NFL’s oldest coach, less than two months short of 70 years old. He’s talked often about being in the highest-risk age group for contracting the virus.
So he’s sought not just to talk the talk, but walk the walk on avoiding COVID-19.
During last season, Carroll struck a deal with his players: tell us when you are having visitors—parents, family members, cousins, girlfriends, significant others, whomever, no questions asked—and we will get them tested for COVID with same-day results we are providing each day from July into January to you, each player.
They did. And it worked, wondrously. Seattle was the NFL’s only team to not have a confirmed case of COVID-19 among players during the 2020 season, ending this past January. The Seahawks went 12-4 and won the NFC West.
This spring into summer, Carroll brought in Dr. Vin Gupta to talk to Seahawks players via Zoom. Gupta is an affiliate assistant professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle. He is widely known for his medical commentary on NBC News, particularly in the last 16 months about the coronavirus pandemic.
“He came in here and talked to our guys about it and gave a really big pitch,” to get vaccinated, Carroll said last month.
In June, the Seahawks provided families of players, coaches and staff chances to get vaccinated at the team’s facility.
“We are deep into fighting to get this thing done, in the deepest way possible,” Carroll said. “We are fighting to make the strides and the steps that they’ve got to make, and the sacrifices...but they are doing it for the right reasons, and they’ve got really good information. ...
“I am really thrilled about that response. ...
“We’ve been strong in our commitment to stick with it, which is the most important part of this whole thing.”
This story was originally published July 28, 2021 at 5:31 PM.
