Seahawks begin first virtual offseason program. And Pete Carroll doesn’t know what’s next
The Seahawks got their drafted players. They are about to finalize the signing of a dozen or so rookie free agents. Their roster is about at its offseason limit.
All those Seahawks, up to 90 players. Yet no place for them to practice and play.
Coach Pete Carroll gathered the team Monday for the start of three weeks of official offseason workouts like no other.
He didn’t gather those guys inside the team’s fancy headquarters on Lake Washington in Renton. That building, and every other NFL team facility, is closed indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Instead, Carroll had the mother of all Zoom calls with all his Seahawks Monday morning. He and his assistant coaches plus training staff gave about 70 players their training plans for May remotely.
“Here we go,” Carroll said. “We’re into the virtual phase one for the first time ever. Our coaches have spent a lot of time trying to be creative and inventive in how we’re going to present stuff to try to capture them.
“One of the things about our program is it is so energetic, and there is so much interaction and relationship stuff that goes on. This is going to be different. It’s going to tax us in a different way. We are looking for all of the edges that we can find and the nuances that we can create that will make this a really special and unique time that will be meaningful.”
This is the first phase of the NFL’s annual three-phase offseason workout program, virtual style.
What offseason workouts usually are
Usually, the first phase is in the team weight and training rooms, with conditioning runs on the field. The second phase can be on-field work, in limited fashion. The third phase is the organized team activities (OTAs) and minicamps that normally have teams practicing on the field without pads over a few weeks in May and June.
Right now, it appears there will be no OTAs or minicamps or on-field work this offseason. That’s because of COVID-19 and states’ stay-at-home orders into May and, in some cases, into June to contain the virus.
“We’re really in the mode of adaptation. ...Everything is kind of fluid and on the move, and you have to be flexible,” Carroll said.
“It’s going to be different, though, of course. All I can tell you is that it is one big challenge. What we have to do as coaches is to continue to push ourselves to see things new and see things new for the first time, again.”
Carroll said his opening remarks to the players on their first virtual Monday of the 2020 league year were: “Here we go.”
Go where? Nobody’s entirely sure.
“They’re going to split up and they’re going to have to go to their own coaches,” Carroll said. “Just think of the technical challenges that we have.
“We have been practicing. Like always, with whatever you’re doing, you have to practice to get good at it. And our coaches have all been working at it, and we’ve been envisioning how this is going to go.
“It’s going to be really fascinating to see how we work.”
Who knows what’s next? Or when?
Thing is, Carroll and his staff don’t know to what end this virtual phase one will lead.
It’s more certain by the day that the next time the players will be on the field will be for training camp. That usually begins the last week of July. No one knows when training camps will start this year.
No one knows when the season is going to start, either.
The league has announced it will release its schedule no later than May 9. It is expected to have built-in ways to shorten the season from 16 games starting the weekend after Labor Day, as usual, to 14 or 12 games if necessary. The priority is to play a full, 16-game schedule, perhaps even if that means openers in mid-October and a Super Bowl at the end of February 2021.
“None of us can project what are we working towards,” Carroll said. “Are we working towards phase two? Are we working towards coming back together? We don’t know. We don’t know about camp or any of that stuff right now.
“We’re just going to keep hope alive and just keep pushing and keep these guys entertained and call on them to be a very big part of what we’re doing.”
It seems possible if not likely the first time players will be together on the field at team facilities will be at training camp—whenever that ultimately begins.
“We don’t know that,” Carroll said. “(NFL executives) have really been close-lipped about that. I don’t know that they know yet. They’re just waiting to get through the draft and then we’ll kind of re-establish where we are.
“I would imagine in the next couple of weeks we will get a lot more information about that. But, who knows? We don’t know. As somebody said, this is pandemic time, so we’re in a whole new ball game right now, so we have to wait and see.”
When players can return to re-opened team facilities will be up to governors and public-health officials. They will decide when normal, non-essential businesses can re-open in states.
Carroll’s concerns
Here’s the crux of the issue: How much time does Carroll believe NFL players needs to train to be ready, safe and healthy for a real game?
“That’s a great question,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider interjected on an online Zoom call before his coach began answering Saturday following the draft’s conclusion.
Carroll echoed his GM.
“That’s a really good question because that’s going to be a very big issue,” the coach said. “I know that our guys need six weeks of work to get rolling, and that’s what the league has always allowed us. A couple weeks, then four (preseason) games, it takes a full five, six weeks in camp.
“Without an intense offseason, with competition and guys working against each other and all of that, I don’t know. We’re going to have to just figure it out. We won’t know until after we see the results of what happens. Maybe we’ll start to see things happen, I don’t know.”
Carroll strongly believes players need the competition of face-to-face workouts with teammates in the weight room and on the field to perfect their preparation for training camp and the season.
“There is a certain level of competition and stress you need to be under, to get your body to adapt and be ready for the kind of level of play that the league demands,” he said. “ I don’t know how that’s going to go. I do think it takes you five, six weeks, anyway. And that’s coming off weeks and weeks of an entire offseason.
“I’m hoping it’s not going to be, ‘Let’s get two weeks of work and then let’s start playing NFL games.’ I hope it’s not like that because that’s going to be really challenging on their bodies and it will be almost impossible to figure that you could do it.”
Then there’s this: veterans don’t really play in the first preseason games. They gradually ramp up game play from maybe one possession, if that, in the first exhibition in early August to maybe two or more quarters in the third preseason game. They skip the fourth and final preseason game to preserve themselves for the opener in early September.
“Think about it like this: What usually happens is that we go to camp for a couple of weeks and then we play a game and the guys play a quarter; they don’t play a full football game,” Carroll said. “We take all of that time to kind of lead them into it.
“There will be a lot of scientifics, a lot of analytics that will help support that.
“But it’s going to be a challenge to figure that out.”
Asked if it’s a foregone conclusion there will not be OTAs or minicamps this offseason, Carroll said: “Rookie minicamp, we’re going to have it. It’s going to be a virtual one, though.
“So, that’s kind of our first step that is a couple weeks from now and away we go. The offseason (began) Monday. And our guys, they’ve got their format to work out, and we’ll be starting the in-classroom stuff with them, of course. But a lot has to be done on their own.”
For now, teams can provide workouts and up to $1,500 per player worth of equipment such as resistance bands, kettlebells virtually, and electronic monitoring watches.
The NFL and its players associated this month approved these three weeks of virtual offseason workouts. They can consist of classroom instruction, workouts and non-football educational programs that use videoconferencing.
The Buccaneers, Dolphins, Eagles and Ravens are the only teams conducting virtual, physical workouts right now, according to NFL.com.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 7:27 AM.
