So much new this camp, summer for Russell Wilson it feels like his Seahawks rookie year

Everything is so new with these Seahawks, even Russell Wilson feels like a kid again.

Yes, he’s only 29 years old. Yet Seattle’s franchise quarterback looks around this Seahawks training camp and sees so many new faces that it reminds Wilson of six years ago.

That was the last time the Seahawks were beginning a new era, as they are now.

“This year feels kind of like my rookie year,” Wilson said Friday following the second day of his seventh Seahawks training camp at team headquarters next to shimmering Lake Washington.

“Way more experience, obviously. But the feeling of it all, it’s just different—for whatever reason.”

For absolutely justified reason.

Richard Sherman is gone, waived to San Francisco. Michael Bennett is gone, traded to Philadelphia. Besides those two gigantic voices and personalities departing, Wilson lost the only play caller and offensive coordinator he’s had in the NFL when the Seahawks fired Darrell Bevell. Then Paul Richardson, one of Wilson’s fastest receivers with whom he had gained greater trust throughout last season, left for bigger free-agent riches from Washington.

In their places are outwardly quieter, mostly younger, motivated players new or newer to coach Pete Carroll’s system and message.

Wilson spent much of his Friday connecting on deep passes all over the field to David Moore. Moore is 23 years old. He barely played last season, his rookie one out of tiny East Central University in Oklahoma.

Wilson has a new line coach, Mike Solari, with whom he is meshing for protection schemes with the blockers. This is the first time in the NFL he’s not had Tom Cable and his system.

Most noticeably, Wilson has a new, detail-driven coordinator in Brian Schottenheimer. The 44-year-old runs around before practice slapping every offensive player on the back. He is also essentially Wilson’s quarterbacks coach, drilling him in fundamentals as much or more than any coach ever has. The bond Wilson must form with Schottenheimer may prove to be the most important new in this training camp for the Seahawks 2018 season.

“All the new faces and everything else,” Wilson said. “I think the outside world doesn’t really know what we are planning, what we are hoping, to do, what we are working for.

“I don’t think anybody has really crazy-high expectations my rookie year, too.”

That was 2012, the first of five consecutive playoff appearances for Wilson and the Seahawks and the precursor season to Seattle’s first Super Bowl championship the following year.

The Seahawks would gladly take 2012-like results this year. Last season was the first time the Seahawks didn’t make the playoffs since the year before the Seahawks drafted Wilson in the third round in 2012. Wilson had his third consecutive 3,900-yard passing season—the top three passing years in franchise history—and led the NFL with 34 touchdown passes, tying his team record from 2015.

Coaches, teammates, energy and vibe aren’t all that is new for Wilson this summer.

This month he went on an overdue, extended honeymoon with his wife and singer Ciara to South Africa. She had been there and in Cape Town many times. Wilson, who said his wife is far more famous and recognizable than he is there, had never been and always wanted to go.

When he described Friday what he saw, learned and felt in South Africa, Wilson got somewhat emotion in his voice and eyes, as emotional as the often-scripted QB gets.

“The best part of Africa was going to the townships,” he said. “We went to the townships, and one of the coolest things was seeing the kids. And they didn’t have anything, at all. And I think about just in America, and I think about our own personal lives that we all live, and I see somebody who is 10, 13, 14, 15 years old who has nothing yet still lives life full of joy and has such happiness. Who loved dancing with Ciara, who loved throwing the football—they had never seen a football. The curiosity.

“Watching these throw a ball and they had never thrown a (foot)ball before was fascinating to me. And they were throwing spirals, day one. And to be able to throw with them, that was the most gratifying thing probably I’ve ever experienced.

“Seeing a kid walk out (after beating) cancer, that was probably the most gratifying thing. But that right there, just seeing kids with joy, who had absolutely nothing or may not even have parents, or whatever it is...”

Wilson then paused and composed himself for a beat.

“That was pretty cool,” he said. “I was grateful for that experience.”

That’s not all Wilson did in South Africa. He flew a helicopter over animals roaming wild across African plains. He reveled in the messages of Nelson Mandela.

Oh, yeah, he also inserted a microchip inside and took DNA samples from a rhinoceros, as part of an effort there to preserve the animal in the wild.

Just how did he do that?

“Good question,” the QB said with a sly grin. “I tackled him. I ran him down.

“No, safely, with a veterinarian they (tranquilize) dart the rhino, safely. So that way it’s still... the heart is beating, and everything else. Then they fall down, gently, and you have about, I don’t know, 15 or 20 minutes, something like that...

“You take the DNA. You get the hair and the blood. And then you are able to put a microchip—without saying too much, you put the microchip in the horn. That way if someone steals their horn, you know where they are. Or, if the rhinos are running around and something is going on they can track what’s going on.”

Who knew your Seahawks’ quarterback was part Wild Kingdom?

Wilson was also in Canada this summer—inside a race car at a Formula I race.

And he was in England, promoting the Seahawks’ first game there in October, against the Raiders. He toured construction at English Premier League soccer side Tottenheim Hotspur’s new billion-dollar palace going up in London’s north end. That’s supposed to be where the Seahawks and Raiders play, but this week there has been talk in the United Kingdom the game may ultimately be moved to London’s famed Wembley Stadium because Tottenham’s place may not be ready.

“I hope we play there,” Wilson said.

For all the world traveling, the spring-training baseball he played for the Yankees in March, his helicopter piloting and buying a stake in an effort to bring a Major League Baseball team to Portland, Wilson said one thing that wasn’t new this offseason was his focus on the same aspect of his quarterback play: improving and perfecting his footwork.

“I don’t mean to be boring, but I always say this: I think it’s always the footwork stuff,” he said. “I mean, I’ve always had good footwork, but if I can find three more plays a game, how much more can that do?

“That level of detail and meticulous focus. In everything. ...I’m always looking for the fine details, in everything, yet still being natural. Still being me.”

With all that’s new for him in this summer and this came, Wilson was asked if Bennett was right when he said this spring upon departing that Carroll’s message and ways with the Seahawks had gotten stale last year. Sherman said this spring upon signing with the 49ers that Carroll’s rah-rah, all-in system is better suited for college, with new players coming in to get a new-to-them message from the coach in four-year cycles.

Does Wilson believe that is true?

“No,” he said, flatly.

“Some people may call it staleness. I call it consistency,” Wilson said. “I think, for me, I think that in the past we’ve had some amazing joyrides. We’ve been able to do a lot of amazing things. We’ve had a couple tough moments. But at the end of the day, what I do know of all the teams I’ve been fortunate to play with, all the guys I’ve been fortunate to play with, is every single one of those guys laid it on the line. From guys like Michael Bennett to Kam Chancellor to Richard Sherman to guys who didn’t play very much.”

This story was originally published July 27, 2018 at 4:39 PM.