Rookie Shaquem Griffin continues wondrous week, joins twin Shaquill on Seahawks’ starting D

That fantastic, one-of-a-kind story of twins Shaquill and Shaquem Griffin reuniting on the Seahawks?

It just got better.

Friday, for the first time, in the seventh practice of Seattle’s training camp, Shaquem, the rookie linebacker who’s been zooming around the lakeside practice field like one of the Blue Angels flying over it this weekend, joined starting cornerback Shaquill with the number-one defense. The moment came in a series of plays near the end of Friday’s team scrimmaging.

“It’s good. Just being around anybody that play out there is an extreme blessing,” Shaquem, younger than Shaquill by one minute, said. “Me being out there with the ones allowed me to kind of open up more. It allowed me to talk more. You see how it’s actually done (among the starters), opposed to the young guys that are still learning the process. Me being out there, I kind of get a feel for how everything is going.”

Shaquem was the weakside linebacker spelling Pro Bowl veteran K.J. Wright. He played next to All-Pro middle linebacker Bobby Wagner, and in front of his twin, the Seahawks’ starting left cornerback since his rookie season last year.

What did the younger twin learn while running with the ones?

“They talk very well. They talk fluently,” Shaquem said.

“I just want to be able to, when I’m with the twos and everybody else, I should be able to replicate that just like how they are.”

So does running with the ones just over a week into his first NFL training camp signal to Shaquem he’s arrived, that he indeed belongs at this level as the first one-handed player drafted into the league in its modern era?

“Definitely not. Definitely not.” he said, flatly. “I’ve got a lot to prove. I’ve got to prove myself, every single day. I’m not going to get comfortable where I’m at.

“I’m blessed and happy to be here. But the work is not done. Far from done. I’m just here to learn more and be the best player and be the best teammate I can be.”

His humility and his rise on the Seahawks’ defense are not all to this most unique story in the NFL this preseason.

Or do you know of other twin brothers as teammates and roommates?

The Griffin twins recently got a puppy, a five-month-old Blue Frenchie bulldog. They named him Tank. Tank lives with them in their place they share in suburban Seattle.

Tank already has a big belly, Shaquem reported with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” Shaquill told me Friday. “He’s big.”

“He’s a very hefty puppy,” Shaquem confirmed. “Big stomach.”

Tank’s arrival has exacerbated a concern Shaquill has (only semi-jokingly) had since the Seahawks drafted his twin three months ago: his brother and his possessions are going to take up too much of Shaquill’s living space. Just like it used to in their childhood home in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“So now we are taking up more room,” Shaquem said of he and Tank. “We are kind of taking over right now.

“He don’t like it that much.”

While the Griffins are in the Seahawks’ team hotel on Seattle’s east side during training camp, a dog-sitter is watching after Tank.

Tank’s missing a Griffins mini-takeover of this Seahawks training camp.

The twins are reunited and living together following a 2017 that was the first year of their lives they lived separately. Shaquill left UCF and played for Seattle last year while Shaquem stayed in Orlando to finish his fifth, redshirt-senior season at Central Florida.

That’s enough reason for the Griffins to celebrate. But they are also all over the Seahawks’ defense right now.

Shaquill, who learned the craft last year as All-Pro Richard Sherman’s protege, is entrenched as the starting left cornerback. He is replacing the waived Sherman, who is now with San Francisco. Shaquill’s moved over from the right corner he manned last year as a rookie third-round pick. He has switched sides with Byron Maxwell.

Maxwell is currently starting on the right side, pending a seemingly imminent push from rookie draft choice Tre Flowers for the starting-cornerback job there.

Shaquem said he sees Flowers, a safety in college at Oklahoma State, practicing in their camp hotel rooms the footwork for Carroll’s step-kick technique all Seahawks cornerbacks must master.

The fun-loving Shaquem gets a kick out of that.

“OK, it is kind of funny watching it,” Griffin said. “Obviously, if you are still in the learning process, you not going to do it right. So, when you see him do it and you know he not doing it right, and then my brother shows him again, of course, I’m not doing anything else but just going over my stuff, so I’m watching him. And I sometimes just laugh.”

In the league’s best story of April’s draft, the Seahawks drafted the younger Griffin in the fifth round. They did so because of his speed, which he’s shown in the last week here is truly eye-catching, and his tackling ability. Seattle’s coaches also love how the defensive player of the year two seasons ago in the American Athletic Conference, a star of UCF’s 13-0 team that beat Auburn in January’s Peach Bowl, has experience as a college safety down the field in pass coverage plus as a thudding linebacker up on the line against the run.

The more you can do...

So the Seahawks are exploring all the ways they can use him right away this season. In the spring’s offseason practices Griffin often backed up Wagner in the middle. Lately he’s been backing up Wright off the weak-side edge. Shaquem is also running down field on special-teams units.

This week during scrimmaging Griffin was lined up far outside left near the sideline covering running back C.J. Prosise, a former Notre Dame wide receiver. Griffin stuck tightly to Prosise from the line of scrimmage in stride with him 20 yards down the field, as if Griffin was a cornerback. Before the next snap Griffin was showing a blitz inside through the “A” gap, between the center and guard, like a middle linebacker. Then after the snap he dropped off and ran left to cover rookie tight end Will Dissly 15 yards down the middle.

Each time, the quarterback threw away from Griffin’s glue coverage.

Griffin’s wondrous week began Sunday with him stripping Nick Vannett of the ball for a fumble following the tight end’s catch at the goal line during a seven-on-seven drill. Monday, Griffin baited Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson by waiting then pouncing on a pass in front of the receiver at the goal line for an interception. The rookie tricked a seven-year veteran of reading NFL defenses, then was fast enough to steal the throw almost before Wilson saw him.

Wagner and the defense’s other veteran starters mobbed the rookie after that play, as if Griffin had just won another championship for them.

“He’s SO fast,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said of the man who some clocked at 4.38 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the league’s scouting combine in March.

It was the fastest time by a linebacker at the combine since 200. Last year at the combine Shaquill ran the 40 in...4.38 seconds.

Between coverage and zooming around off the ball as a weakside linebacker, plugging running lanes inside as a middle linebacker and covering receivers tightly far down the field, about the only thing Shaquem hasn’t done in his first months in the NFL is pass rush.

With Michael Bennett traded to Philadelphia, Cliff Avril retired and Dion Jordan out indefinitely with a leg stress fracture, the Seahawks could use some more pass rushers. But that’s something Griffin did little of at Central Florida. He rarely had his hand on the ground, straight pass rushing.

So what. Seahawks defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. is plenty excited with all else Shaquem is doing so far.

“We haven’t rushed him a lot as a passer. We have guys on the edge,” Norton said. “He’s been behind the ball playing ‘Will’ (weakside) linebacker fantastic.

“Any time you turn on the film or out here at practice you can’t help but see him flying around the field. He had an interception against Russell Wilson. ...It’s really exciting to see because he grew from the offseason plays. He’s just getting better every day.

“There’s nothing to hold him back, and we’re excited he’s on our team.”

What strengths have coaches noticed already in Shaquem?

“Well, he’s best at a lot of things. I think his biggest strength is, everyone knows, is his speed. He’s really, really fast,” Norton said.

“He has a great combination with that speed: his mind. He really thinks well and really loves ball.

“So, it’s been a joy to coach him because he has his combination of speed, he loves ball and he understands what his strengths are. And he plays to them.“

Sounds like another Griffin is going to have a prominent role in the Seahawks’ defense as a rookie this season.

As if Friday wasn’t going swell enough for Shaquem, someone told him it was National Twins Day.

“(I had) no idea,” he said.

“I mean, I guess I wasn’t even worried about it because I’m already a twin. So, I’m a twin every day.

“Isn’t it, like, National Twin Day for me every day?”

This story was originally published August 3, 2018 at 6:57 PM.