No fans. K.J. Wright is back. Will Dissly full go. More from Seahawks training camp day 1
Everyone not wearing a helmet was wearing a mask.
Everyone. Pete Carroll. All his assistant coaches. Trainers. Team doctors. Ball boys. Even injured players on the side.
Players were wearing contact-tracing monitors when they aren’t on the field. Those beep warnings when they come within six feet of anyone else.
Stacks of individualized Gatorade bottles on new, special orange carts, four rows high, lined each sideline. Those were for each player, not to share.
Staying outside was a constant theme. The players even ate outside.
And, most noticeably, no fans.
The grass berm astride the east sideline — which this time of year is usually packed with thousands of cheering fans screaming for autographs from Seahawks players — was full of only mowed, green grass.
“It is different, yeah,” Carroll said Wednesday after Seattle’s first practice of a COVID-19 training camp like none the NFL has ever seen. “I miss (the fans) already. This is fun time we get, to come to camp and share with the fans. You can feel there’s a difference.
“So we’ve just got to send the messages somehow, through the airwaves, how things are going. Hopefully you guys can really keep everybody abreast of what it’s like, and they can stay with us as we go through it.”
Dutifully, then, let me keep you abreast of what I saw, heard and thought on Day 1 of Seahawks training camp, a no-pads, helmets-and-shorts practice in 70-degree sun:
1. K.J. Wright is back. And he isn’t going anywhere.
Carroll said the Seahawks were concerned their 31-year-old linebacker would need to go on the physically-unable-to-perform list at the start of camp. That’s because of the shoulder surgery Wright had this spring.
Instead, Wright was right in the middle of the starting defense yet again to begin his 10th Seahawks training camp. Seattle’s longest-tenured player was the first-team weakside linebacker next to All-Pro Bobby Wagner. He was also next to Wagner for the unit’s first snaps in nickel defense.
“Marvelous recovery.” That’s what Carroll called it.
So no, the Seahawks aren’t cutting Wright to save his non-guaranteed, $11 million in salary-cap charge for 2020. It’s the final year of his contract. Wright earned this last year with one of the best seasons of his NFL career.
So where’s that leave first-round pick Jordyn Brooks?
During the first practice of camp, it left the leading tackler at Texas Tech for four years ending last winter as the second-team weakside linebacker.
The starters at linebacker in base defense were Wagner in the middle, Wright on the weakside and Bruce Irvin on the strongside — where Irvin was from 2012 through ‘15 in his first, Super Bowl-champion go-round with Seattle.
So far, the first of four no-pads practice before Monday’s first full-pads practice, the Seahawks coaches appear to be taking a slow, developmental route with Brooks.
I’ll be watching as the practices ramp up in intensity Friday, Sunday (after a player off day Saturday) and Monday for Wright to move to strongside, Irvin more to a situational pass rusher at end and Brooks to first-team weakside linebacker.
Carroll has said both Wright and Brooks may start, and that Brooks’ most direct way to starting as a rookie.
Irvin looked sleek, smoothly slithering with hand rips through vertical blocking dummies on day one.
2. Will Dissly is full go. Already.
The tight end ruptured his Achilles tendon in October. He didn’t miss a day of his nine-month rehabilitation in California. Not one day, Carroll said.
Wednesday, Dissly was full go in the offense, as if he never had his second season-ending injury in as many seasons in the NFL.
He’s on track to be the number-two tight end behind new number one Greg Olsen. Signed this offseason from Carolina for one year and $7 million, the 35-year-old Olsen worked red-zone routes and throws from Russell Wilson while Dissly caught balls mainly from backup Geno Smith near the goal line Wednesday.
3. DK Metcalf looks bigger.
That may not be realistic being the hulkish Metcalf is 6-foot-4 and 229 pounds. He already towers over and bulls through any defensive back in the league.
But Wednesday, to begin year two with Seattle, is looks bulkier.
Carroll says it’s obvious the month-plus of work Metcalf did with Wilson in California at the quarterback’s offseason training field is paying off with a seamless, albeit delayed, start to this camp for those two in particular.
4. Shaquem Griffin, defensive end.
The team officially still lists Griffin as an outside linebacker. But during position drills, Griffin was at end working on his pass rush with his hand on the ground. It’s the role he had late last season.
And it’s a role it appears the needy Seahawks pass rush is going to try him and his speed in 2020.
“He’s got the latitude to, you know, play different spots for us,” Carroll said. “He’s an outside backer, though. He’s an outside backer that rushes.
“So I wouldn’t call him a defensive end. But he plays the defensive end spot.”
What?
That’s the state of Seattle’s pass rush, which was next to last in the NFL in sacks last season. Then the Seahawks lost Jadeveon Clowney (still unsigned) and Quinton Jefferson this offseason.
“He’s learning the linebacker spot, the ‘Sam’ (strongside) spot,” Carroll said. “And he becomes a rusher in the nickel (defense) spot.”
Griffin joined Irvin for pass-rushing drills as “Sam” linebackers during position drills.
5. Marquise Blair, nickel back.
Blair was the first nickel defensive back. That’s what Carroll said would happen to begin the preseason.
The Seahawks want a bigger nickel this season, to play it more and base 4-3 defense less than the league-leading 60-plus percent of the time Seattle used last year. Blair is 6-1 and 196 pounds. He’s plays a hard-hitting style like he’s 215 pounds.
He plays bigger than the 5-9, 201-pound Ugo Amadi, who finished his rookie year of 2019 as the nickel DB.
But will Blair prove as able to stay with fast receivers down the field?
6. Rookie defensive end with fast feet.
Rookie defensive end Alton Robinson gained weight in offseason workouts since the Seahawks drafted him in the fifth round in April. He is probably above the 259 pounds he’s listed.
But Robinson’s feet were impressively quick Wednesday. He looked athletic running edging drills while being chased by a teammate around the perimeters of two, orange hula-hoops laying on the turf.
This team could use that burst and speed off the snap in its pass rush.
7. Rookie starting, as advertised.
Rookie third-round pick Damien Lewis was the starting right guard from the first snap of camp. That’s what they drafted him for, to replace D.J. Fluker right away.
8. Ford flying around. Again.
Defensive tackle Poona Ford still looks fast. Especially for being 310 pounds.
The Seahawks have depth and quality issues at tackle behind the irrepressible Ford and re-signed (for $23 million and two years Jarran Reed. Expect them to add a veteran in camp, as they often do in August.
9. The rest of this week.
Thursday is a second day of practice without pads. Friday will be the first day of offense-versus-defense, 11-on-11 drills, in the third no-pads practice. Saturday is a players off day (though they will stay have their daily COVID-19 testing, every day through Sept. 5).
Sunday is the fourth and final practice without pads before the full-pads practice Monday.
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 7:18 AM.
