From unworthy of combine to 5th round to 1st string: Shaquem Griffin will start Seahawks opener

Shaquem Griffin’s remarkable debut year continues. And he still has yet to play his first real game.

That changes Sunday. The rookie, the first one-handed player drafted into the modern NFL, the one-of-a-kind prospect the league initially didn’t deem worthy of an invitation to the scouting combine in March, will start his first pro game. The man who this spring said “Don’t set limits for me” will be start at weakside linebacker for the Seahawks in their opener at Denver.

Coach Pete Carroll confirmed before practice Wednesday that Griffin will start at Denver.

“He’s been amazing,” defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. said following Griffin practicing again with the first-team defense Wednesday. “It’s been fun to coach him. It’s been fun to watch his growth.

“His strengths are his speed, and his mind, and his ability to run and hit.

“So (we will) continue to keep him at his strengths.”

Carroll made official what became obvious last week, that Pro Bowl veteran K.J. Wright will not play in week one because he’s still recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery he had Aug. 27.

“It might seem crazy. But it’s not crazy,” Griffin said last week, with a smile. “I’ve just been waiting for my moment.

“For me, it’s all a learning process right now. I’m more than excited to get everything started.”

Carroll said the Seahawks would re-assess Wright “next Wednesday or Thursday.”

Asked if that meant by inference Griffin will start for Wright Sunday against the Broncos, the coach who is normally coy and evasive while discussing starters’ statuses said “Yes. That’s the only one I’ll give you. That one, I will give you.”

So Griffin will be starting a few yards up the field from his twin brother and roommate Shaquill. He’s Seattle’s starting left cornerback.

Together again. Just like the twins have been on and off the field since they were kids in St. Petersburg, Fla., then teammates at the University of Central Florida. The only exception was last year. When Shaquill was playing as a rookie for the Seahawks in 2017, Shaquem was finishing his redshirt-senior season starring at UCF as a converted safety playing outside linebacker.

A few months after Shaquem and his UCF team finished a perfect season by beating Auburn in the Peach Bowl, the Seahawks created the story of this spring’s NFL draft by drafting him in the fifth round, and reuniting the twin brothers.

That was after Shaquem Griffin wowed the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis with one-handed bench presses and a 4.38-second time in the 40-yard dash. That was the same time as his brother from the previous year’s combine, and the fastest by a linebacker at the annual event in 15 years.

Initially, the league didn’t invite him to the combine. It didn’t think he was an NFL-worthy prospect.

During training camp and four preseason games, the Seahawks gave Shaquem Griffin a role new to him, a weakside linebacker in their 4-3 defense. It requires Griffin to shift to more of an inside linebacker on plays and formations away from him, a place he rarely played in college.

Yet his adjustment and now his accelerated preparation to start his first NFL game have gone like everything else this summer for the remarkable rookie.

Wondrously well.

Griffin started last week’s preseason finale at outside linebacker three days after Wright had his knee surgery. Griffin had a game-high three solo tackles and four total in the first quarter, including one on an Oakland running back in the open field short of the line to gain to end a drive. Griffin had seven stops in the first half of that exhibition game.

Then about 30 minutes after the game, Griffin came back out the tunnel from the Seahawks’ locker room and beamed at the sight of dozens of children from across the Pacific Northwest visiting him specifically as part of NubAbility Athletics Foundation, a non-profit organization for different-limbed athletes like himself. The kids were as over the moon at meeting their hero as he was at meeting them and their parents.

With his mother and his twin brother Shaquill, who started with him Thursday at cornerback for Seattle, Shaquem Griffin signed shirts, caps, arms. And he touched hearts.

This story was originally published September 5, 2018 at 4:56 PM.