Is DK Metcalf like a new Bo Jackson? Will he be changed in a new Seahawks offense?
Last month, he was zooming down a track in California racing the nation’s best professional sprinters.
This week, he’s back catching passes from Russell Wilson on the Seahawks’ practice field.
Next month, he’s going to be swinging in a celebrity softball exhibition at Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game in Denver.
Is DK Metcalf the modern-day Bo Jackson?
“I’d like to be a modern-day DK...with some Bo Jackson qualities, in a way,” Metcalf said, chuckling Tuesday following practice at Seattle’s voluntary offseason organized team activities.
The Pro Bowl wide receiver was born three years after Jackson ended his NFL playoff and MLB All-Star playing careers—plus his Nike all-sport, “Bo Knows” television campaigns.
“Yes, sir, I know Bo Jackson—know of him,” Metcalf said.
“Great athlete, and, yes, somebody that I look up to.”
After two seasons in the NFL as Seattle’s man-child receiver with jaw-dropping physical skills, Metcalf is on the verge of transcendent stardom—yes, reminiscent of Jackson more than 30 years ago.
Metcalf’s Pro Bowl season in 2020 seems only a tease of all he can do—or wants to do.
He’s had a Bo-like offseason. He took USA Track & Field up on its perhaps tongue-in-cheek invitation via Twitter to compete to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team. That was after Metcalf famously ran down Budda Baker over about 100 yards, on the Cardinals safety’s long return of Wilson’s pass that Baker intercepted at the goal line during the Seahawks’ game at Arizona in October.
Metcalf trained this spring. Then he entered the USA Track & Field’s nationally televised Golden Games in California to much fanfare last month.
Metcalf the sprinter
In the starting blocks and down the track, the 6-foot-4, 230-pound wide receiver with next-to-no body fat hulked over the other eight sprinters. He stayed with the 100-meter field through 40 meters. That’s the length he’s run many times training for the NFL combine a couple years ago.
As the race doubled that distance, the bigger Metcalf could not find a finishing speed the other eight sprinters all have honed through years of training and competitions. He hasn’t had any of those, not since he was in high school in Oxford, Mississippi. And even then he was a high-school hurdler, not a 100-meter sprinter.
Metcalf finished in an impressive 10.36 seconds. It was ninth in the nine-man heat, steps behind the top five but not good enough to qualify for the Golden Games finals. It also was not good enough for his goal of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, this month.
“My goal was to qualify for the Olympic trials,” Metcalf said Tuesday. “But who knows what my future holds?”
It holds the MLB celebrity softball game in early July. Asked what player he fashioned his hitting a ball after, Metcalf pauses, thinks and says: “Hank Aaron.”
Oh, only the all-time home-run king in the 1970s.
The 23-year-old Metcalf says this is all part of his goal to do all he can, while he can—because he wants to.
“Yes, sir. It’s just to be one of the greatest humans to walk this planet Earth,” Metcalf said. “You know, God says the same.
“I just take it day by day, and just honing on as many different skills as I can.”
Asked his biggest takeaway from competing with the best sprinters in the country, among the best in the world, the Seahawk said: “That those are some fast human beings...
“And I’m going to stick to football.”
That’s a good idea. For this offseason, in particular.
Learning curve
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll hired Shane Waldron from the rival Los Angeles Rams in January to replace fired Brian Schottenheimer as Seattle’s offensive coordinator. Waldron, 41, is a first-time NFL play caller. He is installing a run-based, quicker passing game like L.A.’s, designed with shorter, faster routes by receivers. The idea is for Seattle to become more diversified—and to get the ball out of Wilson’s hand more quickly.
This, after Wilson stated very publicly and loudly in February “I’m frustrated with getting hit too much” over his first nine seasons in Seattle.
Perhaps no Seahawk outside of Wilson has more to adjust to in Waldron’s new offense this spring and summer into than Metcalf.
Usually lined up outside on the line of scrimmage as an “X” receiver, Metcalf was seventh in the NFL with a Seattle-record 1,303 yards receiving last season. He averaged 15.7 yards per catch in 2020 while running long-developing routes deep into physically overmatched defensive secondaries.
Later in 2020, defenses adjusted to Schottenheimer sending Metcalf on deep routes by dropping a second safety down the field in long-pass coverage. The Seahawks were inconsistent answering that counter, only sporadically adjusting their passing schemes and offense to the two-high safety coverage.
Often late last season and in January’s playoff loss to the Rams, Metcalf was still running his planned deeper routes with his back still to Wilson as the QB was feeling pressure and trying to throw earlier and unplanned to his big receiver outside. That happened multiple times in Seattle’s playoff-clinching win at Washington in December. That was one of the only times last season Wilson sought to throw quickly by design, to combat Washington’s ferocious pass rush.
Waldron is likely to move Metcalf and Seattle’s co-top receiver Tyler Lockett interchangeably and all over his varied formations: outside at X, off the ball at Z, some inside as a slot receiver. Waldron is also likely to ask Metcalf to turn his hips and head around back to the quarterback more quickly on far shorter routes than he’s used to, perhaps 2-3 yard hitches and very shallow crossing routes this season.
No wonder Metcalf on Tuesday called the 41-year-old Waldron’s schemes “very intricate.”
“It’s a new offense, so there’s a lot of different new things to learn,” Metcalf said. “That’s one reason why we’re here in OTAs, is just to get our feet wet in the offense, try to take care of as many mistakes as we can early so during training camp (that begins late next month) it’s going to be smooth sailing.”
He and the Seahawks hope.
“He’s a hungry coach. That’s what I like about him,” Metcalf said of the Rams’ former passing-game coordinator and tight ends coach under Sean McVay. “He’s always trying to learn something new, not only about the players, but about the game of football and about offense. He’s always coming up with new ways to try to get his play-makers the ball.”
Metcalf says this spring Waldron has through the team’s remote, Zoom calls with Wilson and the veteran players installed new pass patterns. They are new not only to the Seahawks, but to the NFC West-rival Rams and the NFL, Metcalf says.
“It’s a lot of different kinds of routes that people haven’t seen from either team that he’s coached,” Metcalf said.
“So I’m just excited to get to work with him and get to hone in on those other skills.”
This story was originally published June 9, 2021 at 7:01 AM.
