Finally, football: Five questions the Seahawks need to answer during training camp
Finally — after five months of pandemic shutdown, 5 million coronavirus cases in the U.S., more than a thousand tests for COVID-19 in the team facility’s parking lot — the Seahawks return to football.
Wednesday the players were to be on the field at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton for their first team practice of training camp. It’s their first team workout in seven months, since the day before Seattle’s playoff loss at Green Bay in January.
“It’s been a really different process. It’s not like any other start to any other camp I’ve ever been around,” 68-year-old Pete Carroll said of his 11th training camp as Seattle’s coach and 26th as a coach in the NFL.
“The call for patience is, like, ridiculous. We get to this point — we missed the offseason, the physical part, in the complex here and all of that — we are so rarin’ to go.”
This is the next, new phase of how the NFL is preparing to play the 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. For the first time, players will be massed on the same field in offense-versus-defense drills and line play. It’s a new test for the COVID-19 and social-distancing protocols the Seahawks and all teams are adhering to daily.
But they won’t be hitting each other. Not yet.
The Seahawks will have four days of practices without pads: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday,. They have a players day off Saturday.
The first full-pads practice is scheduled for Monday. Seattle gets 14 practices in full pads between Aug. 17 and its opening game Sept. 13 at Atlanta. There are no preseason games this year.
That’s all per the COVID-19 testing, acclimation and practice plans to which the NFL and its players’ union agreed last month for this unprecedented training camp.
The Seahawks are having game-like scrimmages inside CenturyLink Field Aug. 22 and 26. Their home stadium in downtown Seattle will be without fans, just as it appears it will be for Seahawks home games this season per King County’s ongoing coronavirus restrictions.
Here are five questions for the finally-football phase of training camp the Seahawks need to answer before the 2020 season:
1. Where will the pass rush come from?
Carroll and general manager John Schneider (have so far) whiffed on their top priority of the offseason: re-signing three-time Pro Bowl pass rusher Jadeveon Clowney. Clowney remains unsigned. So far his non-existant free-agent market has been coming back to the Seahawks and the lower offer they made to him in March.
It’s still possible he signs back with Seattle before this season begins. Especially if he decides to take a one-year deal and make a do-over run at free agency next spring when presumably he won’t be coming off core-muscle surgery and we still won’t be shut down by the pandemic.
The Seahawks are also interested in former Minnesota Vikings four-time Pro Bowl defensive end Everson Griffen. The 32-year-old free agent played for Carroll at USC.
Seattle’s pass rush has done this since finishing next-to-last in the league last season in sacks: lost Clowney and defensive end Quinton Jefferson (to Buffalo); added situational edge rushers Bruce Irvin and Benson Mayowa in free agency; drafted rush ends Darrell Taylor from Tennessee in round two and Alton Robinson from Syracuse in round five.
The Seahawks are asking a lot of Irvin. He turns 33 in November, returning to the team that drafted him in 2012. He had a career-high 8 1/2 sacks last year for Carolina. That career year happened while the Panthers used him as an edge rusher in nickel defense on passing downs in 2019.
Mayowa, 29, had a career-best seven sacks for Oakland last season, all in his first seven games. His 302 snaps were his fewest since his rookie season with the Seahawks when he played just two games. The Raiders coaches were just done with him the last half of last season.
It’s time for L.J. Collier to show why Seattle drafted him in the first round last year. His rookie season was basically a redshirt year. A badly sprained foot and ankle in training camp set him back deep into September. Then he was a healthy scratch for five games.
Rasheem Green comes back after leading the team with four sacks last year, his second since Seattle drafted him in the third round.
Is defensive tackle Jarran Reed the 10 1/2-sack force he was in 2018, next to since-departed rush end Frank Clark? Or is true Reed the one who has five sacks total in his three other NFL seasons? Carroll and Schneider gave Reed $23 million over the next two years in a new contract in March believing the true Reed is more the 10 1/2-sack guy.
I will be watching during camp for how much base defense Irvin plays as a strong-side linebacker, which is what he listed as but has rarely played as the last couple years. I’ll be watching to see the skill that made Collier a No. 1 pick. I also will be watching for signs the rookies Taylor and Robinson can pressure NFL quarterbacks immediately this season.
That’s a lot of unknowns, inexperience and hope for the pass rush that is essentially in this passer-and-sack-the-passer league.
The Seahawks’ Super Bowl chances depend on it.
2. Is the almost-complete overhaul of the offensive line working?
It’s possible 80% of the starting line will be changed from 2019 to the 2020 opener.
The lone sure returning starter is Duane Brown at left tackle. The Pro Bowl veteran turns 35 this month and is coming off knee surgery.
The Seahawks swung too much to emphasizing road-grader run blockers — D.J. Fluker, Mike Iupati — the last few years, at the expense of pass protection. The changes this offseason seek to give Russell Wilson the time to do what he’s exquisitely best in the league at: throwing accurate long balls onto receivers’ hands 40-plus yards down the field.
This will be the first time Wilson has had a full-time center not named Max Unger or Justin Britt. The Seahawks released Britt after his reconstructive knee surgery. Then they cut Joey Hunt, the center who filled in for him the final three months of last season. The job is B.J. Finney’s. Seattle signed him from Pittsburgh this spring. He played more guard than center for the Steelers.
The 14 padded practices will be a crash course for Finney and Wilson to get even as close to synchronized on line calls and audibles before the snap as Wilson was with Britt, and with Hunt, for that matter.
Brandon Shell signed from the New York Jets to replace Germain Ifedi at right tackle. His job is to be a better pass protector on Wilson’s front side. If the patchwork pass rush is getting past Shell in the one-on-one drills in training camp, uh-oh.
Seattle drafted Damien Lewis in the third round from LSU to replace the released Fluker at right guard. Lewis didn’t get the usual ramp-up time for rookies of OTAs and minicamps in May and June. He must be ready to play right away.
Iupati re-signed this spring after starting last regular season at left guard and after a neck injury sidelined him in the playoffs. But I’ll be watching during camp to see if Jordan Simmons, back off a season-ending injury last year, or 2019 fourth-round pick Phil Haynes wins the left-guard job over Iupati. One of those two is Seattle’s future at the position. The future may be now.
3. Just how versatile is Jamal Adams?
This camp will begin showing why the Seahawks traded two first-round picks plus veteran starter Bradley McDougald to the Jets last month to get the All-Pro safety.
I will be watching for all the places the 24-year-old Adams lines up before snaps. How close to the line? How much inside versus tight ends? Against slot receivers? Outside versus wide outs? How interchangeable is he being with safety partner Quandre Diggs?
That versatility—and Adams’ Legion of Boom-like swagger—are why Carroll is pumped to see Adams play.
Carroll brought up his former USC safety Troy Polamalu when talking about Adams a couple weeks ago.
“Forget the stature part of it, the way they look. It’s the nature that they play with is similar,” Carroll said. “They play with such amazing confidence that when they see things, they go get things.
“Just watch him play Watch the juice that he brings. Watch the energy that he feels in playing this game that he loves and how that affects the people around him.
“You could see him be all fiery and interpret that like he’s being selfish, or like he’s being overly outgoing or whatever. C’mon! This guy loves what he does and he cares so much that the passion just exploded out of him at times, which is exactly what you’ve seen in players that we’ve had in our program for years.
“So to have a chance to add that to our team—forget all the playmaking stuff—it’s that element of mentality that I’d love to add so that Bobby gets to play with a guy like and that J-Reed gets to play with a guy like that, and Bruce. And they’ll all feed off of each other.”
4. Where will top rookie Jordyn Brooks play?
The Seahawks need their first-round pick to play like one, right away, for a change. He will get the chance.
They love Brooks’ speed, instincts, tackling and ability to cover multiple types of receivers in the open field. Brooks showed that while the leading tackler at Texas Tech—beginning in his freshman season. He played middle linebacker last year, outside the other three seasons in college.
K.J. Wright, Seattle’s rock at weak-side, “Will” linebacker for most of the last decade, is entering the final year of his contract. He turned 31 last month. He is the longest-tenured Seahawk; Carroll and Schneider drafted him in 2011.
What is Brooks’ clearest path to starting this season?
“Well, I think the spot that makes sense for us at this point—he can play either outside or inside, he can play all three spots at linebacker,” Carroll said. “I think his clearest path, what might be his most obvious path, is at the ‘Will’ linebacker spot. We’ll see how that goes. We will start him there, and see how fast he grasps it and how soon he can become comfortable. And we’ll see.”
I think that means Wright will move to strong-side linebacker, where he has played some in the past. Mychal Kendricks started at strong-side the last two seasons. Seattle did not re-sign him. He is a free agent.
I will be watching to see if the coaches move Wright to strong-side linebacker and employ Brooks at weak-side next to Wagner right away.
5. How ready is Chris Carson?
The fact he didn’t need surgery for his season-ending cracked hip in December has led Carson and the Seahawks to believe their lead running back who’s rushed for more than 2,300 yards total the last two years will be ready for the opener.
There is no need to have him out there full go Wednesday. Or even next week. But as August turns to September I’ll be watching to see if Carson looks ready for the lead role from game one.
If not, Carlos Hyde is here. Coming off his first career 1,000-yard season last year, for Houston, Hyde signed this offseason as insurance.
Carson hasn’t finished a full season fully healthy since junior college. Backup Rashaad Penny, the team’s first-round pick from 2018, is coming off reconstructive knee surgery. He may miss the first two months of this season. He is on the physically-unable-to-perform list to begin camp.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 1:34 PM.
