Why was Russell Wilson teaching Seahawks teammate DK Metcalf to swim recently in Mexico?
Russell Wilson was moving his offense smartly down the field.
Smartly, because it was against air.
The offense and defense again were prohibited from scrimmaging against each other Thursday during the second practice of Seahawks training camp; that more-real work begins Friday.
Thursday’s practice ended with Wilson flicking a deep, rainbow of a pass down the right sideline. DK Metcalf ran under it. The hulking, second-year wide receiver turned into the brilliant sun and caught Wilson’s lofted ball over his right, outside shoulder. Metcalf then carried the ball coolly across the goal line.
Pete Carroll turned and signaled to a team assistant to press the air horn three times to end the practice.
But that didn’t end Wilson’s and Metcalf’s workout. They stayed on the field for extra throwing and catching, well beyond practice ending. As usual.
It was just like Wilson and Metcalf did together in …
Mexico?
“We were able to go down together to Mexico — safely, and before COVID kind of went crazy,” Wilson said of the pandemic that began shutting down North America in March. “We were able to spend some time down there, I don’t know, five, six, seven days, down there and just getting a lot of work in.”
“We worked every single day,” Wilson said, “threw for a couple of hours. Lifted together. Ran together. Talked together.”
And life-fundamentaled together.
“Kind of cool,” Wilson said, “I actually got to teach DK how to swim.”
Swimming. Just something else for the so-far wondrous Metcalf to do, to further his already impressive game in 2020.
After all, the Seahawks fourth game this season is at the, um … Dolphins.
“Pretty cool,” Wilson said of his teaching Metcalf to swim.
“Obviously, our friendship has evolved like crazy. He’s one of my best friends, for sure. Love his demeanor. Love who he is.
“You know, he’s like a little brother to me, in a way.”
He’s a 6-foot-4, 229-pound little brother — with a Herculean physique, minuscule body fat, a freakish 40.5-inch vertical leap and a track-sprinter’s 4.33-second 40-yard dash.
Usually, Wilson brings his entire group of Seahawks receivers to a warm, sunny spot during the offseason to work out, hang out and bond. He’s hosted teammates most often in southern California and also in Hawaii.
The coronavirus pandemic made a large group of Seahawks flying to work out with Wilson imprudent. Plus, Wilson was limiting his exposure to big groups this spring and summer.
“We had a unique situation in our home, itself, with (wife) Ciara being pregnant,” Wilson said, laughing.
So the quarterback focused on intensive, one-on-one workouts.
The beneficiaries: Metcalf, plus two new Seahawks receivers, veterans Greg Olsen and Phillip Dorsett.
This was the first time he’d taken a teammate to Mexico, apparently to one of the El Dorado resorts on the coast.
“We had to be very careful,” Wilson said.
“It was one or two guys at a time. We spent A LOT of quality time together.
“I mean, DK and I spent a lot of quality time together.”
They’ve been doing that since soon after the Seahawks traded up back into the second round of the 2019 NFL draft and selected Metcalf. A couple months later, Wilson was throwing and Metcalf was catching his passes on a field at UCLA. They got up at 5:30 a.m. for those Los Angeles workouts.
They spent a lot of quality time together last season, too. Particularly in the playoffs.
In the days leading up to Metcalf’s first career postseason game, at Philadelphia in January, Seahawks quality-control offensive assistant coach Tom Donatell told him the Eagles would be playing a lot of man-to-man coverage.
Sure enough, the Eagles stayed in man. And Metcalf made them look like boys. He ran past them. He jumped over them. Once, he even rolled then sprinted by them for a touchdown. One month past his 22nd birthday Metcalf set an NFL playoff record for rookies and became the youngest Seahawk to score in a playoff game. Coach Pete Carroll said afterward Metcalf stole the night in Seattle’s 17-9 win that sent the team to Green Bay for the divisional playoffs.
Metcalf’s first postseason line of his NFL life: seven catches on nine targets from Wilson for 160 yards, and a game-breaking, 53-yard touchdown. The yards receiving were the most by a rookie in NFL playoff history.
“He did some stuff that’s hard to imagine anybody else doing,” Carroll said that night.
This offseason, with Metcalf on the verge of perhaps becoming a superstar a year and a half after a doctor told him he’d never play football again because of a broken bone in his neck while playing at Mississippi, Wilson had him come down to Mexico with him.
“Then we went to San Diego, got some more work in,” Wilson said.
Carroll said Metcalf and Wilson worked out together for at least a month. Metcalf declined to specify how long.
“We got to work out quite a bit,” he said, with a grin.
But Metcalf wants you to know he is close with Wilson for more than catching passes.
“It goes further than football,” Metcalf said last week.
“Football is only a short period of my life. I am going to build relationships while I’m here that are going to last a lifetime.”
Wilson said since Mexico Metcalf “is always in the pool now. He’s always trying to swim.
“I’m like, ‘Don’t stay in there too long,’” Wilson said.
After throwing to Metcalf in San Diego, Wilson worked with Dorsett, who signed this offseason from New England, plus Seahawks tight end Will Dissly (looking good returning from a ruptured Achilles tendon in October) and Olsen. Olsen, the 35-year-old, three-time Pro Bowl tight end, signed this winter from Carolina.
These Wilson workouts were during an offseason in which the NFL Players’ Association warned players not to work out together due to the threat of the coronavirus across the country.
“We were really safe in the process,” Wilson said Thursday, more than once.
“But it was definitely different. Definitely unique. But that quality time we were able to spend, and get those reps, was key. …”
Particularly, it sounds like, for Metcalf. He now knows how to swim.
“DK … it’s going to be his second year,” Wilson said.
“And we are expecting a lot out of him.”
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
