Seahawks’ Will Dissly roars back from major knee injury
Will Dissly walked out of the tunnel leading from the locker room. He looked under the translucent roof into his house of horror.
Twelve months earlier almost to the day, on the same day teammate Earl Thomas broke his leg and ended his time in Seattle with a middle finger to fate and Pete Carroll, Dissly had his impressive rookie Seahawks season end in its fourth game. The tight end crashed to the grass of this domed stadium in the middle of the desert with a ruptured patellar tendon. He got that while running a pass route along his team’s sideline in a win at Arizona.
Oh, yes, after all he had bulled through in the last year—the lonely, seemingly endless hours of knee flexing and rehabilitation from an injury doctors told him many football players don’t make it all the way back from—Dissly thought about being back where the grind began.
“I did,” he acknowledged Sunday.
“There’s a lot of bad luck that happens here (to Seahawks) in Arizona. But hopefully, we just corrected that.”
Dissly sure did.
A University of Washington defensive lineman Huskies coach Chris Petersen converted into a tight end after watching him mess around at a bowl practice in Dallas at the end of his sophomore season four years ago, Dissly had a career-high seven catches in eight targets by Russell Wilson and his team-leading fourth touchdown this season in Seattle’s 27-10 race past the Cardinals.
Arizona’s defenders kept hitting him after catches, including hard in that repaired knee. Dissly just kept going—right into a primary place in the Seahawks’ offense entering Thursday night’s NFC West showdown with the defending champion Los Angeles Rams (3-1) at CenturyLink Field.
“He just continues to be a really, really dependable football player,” Carroll said. “I love the way he is playing. He and Russ are hooking up at crucial times. Tough catches. He’s gotten hammered a few times on tackles and bounced right back up.
“He’s a tremendous Seahawk. He does everything so beautifully. It’s great to have him.”
Before he threw his perfectly placed TD pass onto Dissly’s surprisingly soft hands in the back, left corner of the end zone to give the Seahawks (3-1) a 17-3 lead in the second quarter, Wilson was thinking about Dissly’s injury here last year. An hour before Sunday’s game, Wilson had Dissly run the same route for the same pass along the same, east sideline of this stadium on which Dissly’s knee popped Sept. 30, 2018.
“Yeah, I did,” Wilson said. “I was actually thinking about it earlier this morning before we came here, just thinking about the season that Will Dissly was having his rookie year, and then him playing here and getting injured. That was a thing where, to me, I wanted to make sure I was intentional with him today in warm-ups, and in talking to him in the locker room.
“I just told him I was praying for him, praying with him. And he told me he was going to be great today. ...
“He’s a special guy, a special player.”
So special, Dissly’s teammates voted the rugged, thoughtful native of Bozeman, Montana, as the Seahawks’ recipient of the 2019 Ed Block Courage Award. That’s given annually to a member of each NFL team who is a role model of inspiration, sportsmanship, and courage.
“That was pretty cool to see,” Wilson said.
“He’s earned everything. He’s worked for everything. And he’s a tremendous guy, tremendous player, tremendous teammate.”
Wilson, 30, shares an unnatural trust with the 23-year-old tight end who’s played just two months of regular-season ball in the league. He and Dissly attend weekly Bible-study sessions together. They talk often. Not always about football.
“We are pretty connected,” Wilson said.
That connection shows up on the field. Dissly’s four touchdowns in four games give him six scores in eight career games.
That’s six more TDs than a former UW defensive lineman is supposed to have in the NFL.
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“You are just grateful when those opportunities happen,” he said.
“I’m just thankful to be playing football again. I worked tremendously hard. I didn’t do it alone. My family had my back my whole way through. Never lacked in confidence. I think that comes from my teammates. We all try to build each other up, and play for each other. So I’m just trying to lay it on the line for them.
“From the patellar tendon rupture to the shoulder surgeries, it’s just the consistency,” Dissly said. “I think a lot of people get frustrated; you want it today. You want everything to happen now. You want the knee to be better now. I think it’s a slow, steady process. I think a lot of people look past that.
“It takes a lot of discipline. Thankfully, my athletic trainers told me, ‘Hey, it’s not going to be perfect today. But if you keep attacking it, keep attacking it, keep building days, you know, it’s going to be good over time.’ ”
This story was originally published September 30, 2019 at 7:09 AM.
