Trust stops here: Why Seahawks released popular Super Bowl champion DeShawn Shead
For DeShawn Shead, trust stops here.
One of the most popular, experienced, accomplished Seahawks is now an ex-Seahawk.
Seattle released its Super Bowl-champion defensive back and one-time captain from his second stint with the team on Friday night. It’s the first surprising cut before regular-season roster must be set by Saturday afternoon.
Shead posted his goodbye to the Seahawks on Twitter.
The Seahawks could bring back Shead after week one if he doesn’t sign with another team before then. Vested veterans on 53-man roster for the first week of the regular season get their entire salary guaranteed for the year. Veteran signed after week one are paid game to game.
Shead signed a one-year contract at the start of training camp this summer at the NFL minimal salary for veterans, $645,000.
Shead was Seattle’s starting cornerback opposite Richard Sherman in the 2016 season, which ended for him with a serious knee injury. He lobbied coach Pete Carroll for a second chance with the Seahawks in May while they were attending a surprise retirement party for defensive end Cliff Avril. At the party, Shead told Carroll his reconstructed knee that ended his first stint with Seattle after 2017 was completely healed, and that he was actually running faster than ever.
He convinced Carroll of that in a workout at team headquarters in July. The Seahawks signed him days later.
In the second preseason game at Minnesota this month, Shead intercepted a pass and outran the Vikings defense 88 yards for a touchdown. That seemed to affirm his place on this team.
But then safety Lano Hill returned from a cracked hip to join rookie second-round draft choice Marquise Blair to battle Tedric Thompson and others for playing time next to mainstay Bradley McDougald. And seventh-year veteran Jamar Taylor emerged with a standout training camp to win the job as the team’s new starting nickel back for the final preseason games.
Akeem King apparently beat out Shead for the backup nickel role to stay in competition with Taylor.
Seattle drafted linebackers Cody Barton and Ben Burr-Kirven for primary roles this season on special teams. That left Shead without a calling-card role on this roster.
Shead played all four quarters of Thursday’s preseason finale against Oakland, mostly at cornerback and some at the end at safety. It’s now apparent that was a showcasing for him to get plays on film for other teams to look at signing him.
Shead signed before the 2018 season with Detroit. He played 12 games in his only season for the Lions, last year. He did so while not fully recovered from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee he suffered in Seattle’s playoff loss at Atlanta in Jan. 2017.
Shead, 30, has been a favorite of Carroll’s and the Seahawks since before they signed the decathlete at Portland State as an undrafted rookie free agent in 2012. Shead went from just trying to make the Seahawks as a special-teams helper in 2012, to a free safety, strong safety and special-teams mainstay on Seattle’s consecutive Super Bowl teams. In 2016 he was a first-time, full-time starter opposite Sherman.
This spring, after Detroit released him, Shead needed a job. These post-Legion of Boom Seahawks needed defensive backs they can trust.
Shead had done all the jobs in the secondary, and more, for the Seahawks, and at a Super Bowl-championship level. He’s been their special-teams captain, too.
That’s why Shead sought Carroll—at Avril’s party.
“I didn’t want to just come back. I wanted to show them that I could come back and be a player that can go out there and help this team anywhere on this defense,” Shead said in July.
The Seahawks decided since then to go with the promise of Hill and Blair instead of the 30-year-old they trust.
For now, anyway.
This story was originally published August 30, 2019 at 9:37 PM with the headline "Trust stops here: Why Seahawks released popular Super Bowl champion DeShawn Shead."
