Russell Wilson posts video of workout with Seahawks’ DK Metcalf in COVID-19 NFL offseason
The coronavirus apparently isn’t stopping early summer business as usual for Russell Wilson and DK Metcalf.
The Seahawks’ quarterback and second-year wide receiver seem to be training together as they typically are this time of the offseason. They are apparently playing pitch and catch on a field on their own, as they usually do in late June.
“ELEVATE. Year 2. @DKM14” Wilson wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, as the caption to their training session amid palm trees and cactus.
Each June into early July for the last several years, Wilson has invited teammates to his offseason home area in southern California — though the topography in the video clip Wilson posted looks more like Arizona. For years, teammates have trained with Seattle’s franchise quarterback during the NFL’s six weeks of down time between the end of offseason practices and the start of training camp.
This time last year Wilson was throwing and Metcalf was catching his passes on a field at UCLA.
In previouss years, Wilson has had his guys training on a beach just outside of Los Angeles with him in the weeks following the end of minicamp practices. Wilson has been taking his receivers to SoCal for between-seasons workouts since just after his 2012 rookie year with the Seahawks. That first pitch-and-catch was on the sand at Hermosa Beach.
That worked pretty well. Wilson and his bonded teammates won the Super Bowl that subsequent season.
“Yeah, we throw a bunch of routes,” Wilson said last year about his private workouts with teammates. “I think one part of it is just the spending time with each other. And that’s always the fun part.”
“I think also, too, is just really trying to perfect our craft. It’s just like guys in the NBA, you know, offseason they’re shooting around playing with each other, working together and everything else. Just trying to understand what we’re trying to see and what we’re trying to think about ... just like anything else.
“The offseason, I really believe, translates into the regular season and the kick-start that you want to have to the beginning of the season, because you don’t get to play all those games, especially with the preseason games, you know? Not everybody plays and everything else.
“So I think it’s one of those things that you try to get your extra 500 reps or whatever it may be in the offseason leading up into the regular season.”
This year the NFL canceled all organized team activities (OTAs) and minicamps because of the COVID-19 virus. So Wilson and the Seahawks did not have their usual offseason work at their team facility in Renton in May and June; the building has been closed since mid-March. Coaches have recently gone into Seattle’s Virginia Mason Athletic Center to work per league protocols, but players remain prohibited from all team headquarters.
The first time Wilson, Metcalf and the players are expected at the Seahawks’ facility is for the start of a training camp like no other beginning July 28. Restrictions and virus testing are going to be as big a part of the training as footballs and cleats.
Last week, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced people at their facility tested positive for the virus. Multiple players on the Texans and Cowboys, including running back Ezekiel Elliott, tested positive in Texas. Denver Broncos Kareem Jackson told the NFL Network he also tested positive.
Last weekend, the league advised players against doing private training sessions on their own in lieu of the canceled OTAs and minicamps. That was after more than a dozen San Francisco 49ers, including stars Jimmy Garoppolo and George Kittle, were training together in Nashville but had to shut down their workouts. That was because an unidentified player in the group tested positive for COVID-19.
On Saturday, the NFL Players’ Association advised its members to stop “practicing together” until training camps begin.
“Please be advised that it is our consensus medical opinion that in light of the increase in COVID-19 cases in certain states that no players should be engaged in practicing together in private workouts,” NFLPA medical director Dr. Thom Mayer said in a statement the union released. “Our goal is to have all players and your families as healthy as possible in the coming months.
“We are working on the best mitigation procedures at team facilities for both training camps and the upcoming season, and believe that it is in the best interest of all players that we advise against any voluntary joint practices before training camp commences.”
Wilson and Metcalf were noticeably distanced and the only two players seen in the video they posted online. And there’s no evidence of exactly when their workout took place.
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 11:33 AM.
