Baylor basketball national champ, lockdown defender Mark Vital signs with...the Seahawks?
The Seahawks are going well beyond the George Fant route to find their latest tight end.
At least Fant, a college basketball player, dabbled in football for two games his senior year of college before playing for the Seahawks.
Mark Vital hasn’t played football since middle school.
Months after he finished off his college basketball career as one of the nation’s best defensive players and a national champion for Baylor, locking down Gonzaga in the title game, Vital signed onto the Seahawks’ practice squad Thursday.
He’s coach Pete Carroll’s latest intriguing Seahawks project: a tight end who’s really never played tight end. Or football.
The 6-foot-5 forward with long arms and championship experience is the 15th player signed to Seattle’s 16-man practice squad.
This summer, he was playing for Seahawks chair Jody Allen’s Portland Trail Blazers, on their NBA Summer League team.
“I was never going to leave basketball just to leave basketball. I had a plan, but I had to make sure that the plan was right,” Vital told KPLC television in his hometown of Lake Charles, Louisiana, last week.
“I’m leaving basketball with things on the table. I had exhibit 10s (one-year, minimum contracts in the NBA), two-ways (contracts paid depending on how many games a player plays in the NBA and in developmental leagues) and overseas deals.
“For me to leave that, I actually had to have something in football.”
Now he has a place with the Seahawks.
Fant was a power forward for Western Kentucky University’s basketball team through the spring of 2015. By the fall of 2016, he was the Seahawks’ starting left tackle. Seattle signed Fant as an undrafted rookie free agent in the spring of ‘16. He appeared briefly in two football games as a senior for Western Kentucky as a tight end.
The Trail Blazers listed Vital as 6-5, 250 pounds. He hasn’t played football since he was in eighth grade in Lake Charles. And even that wasn’t much.
Not much of a challenge for him, that is.
“I played a little in middle school, but I was bigger than everybody. I wasn’t taking licks like that, I was basically running over everybody,” Vital told KPLC. “At that point, it’s not the same.”
Vital’s size and football position have had people around Lake Charles, Baylor and even the NFL talking about Antonio Gates. Gates as a three-time All-Pro and eight-time Pro Bowl tight end with the San Diego and Los Angeles Chargers from 2003-18. He is likely going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Gates is in the Mid America Conference’s Hall of Fame for being a dominant basketball forward for Kent State University before becoming an undrafted NFL rookie in 2003.
“I feel like I can be a Hall of Famer,” Vital said to KPLC. “I’m already getting compared to Antonio Gates from different scouts and teams when hearing them talk about me. I’m already getting compared to a Hall of Famer, and that’s motivation to me to get to that level.
“I can see the similarities. He and I are both explosive, fast and big. We are built the same.”
The Seahawks can only dream...
Tight end is one of Seattle’s thinnest position groups. The team has only two healthy ones on its 53-man roster for the season opener Sept. 12 at Indianapolis. Those are Gerald Everett and Will Dissly.
Colby Parkinson is the third tight end on the active roster. He got his second major foot injury in as many summers last month. Carroll has said in the last week the team isn’t sure when the 6-7 Parkinson may be able to play again. If it’s deemed to be more than three weeks from now, Parkinson could go on injured reserve and return in as few as three weeks off IR.
Vital is the second tight on the practice squad. Tyler Mabry was with the Seahawks for all of training camp, though he missed time last month while injured.
Before you write off Vital as a stashed project on the practice squad: practice-squad players are now more a part of NFL teams’ game planning than ever.
Last year the league relaxed its practice-squad rules. One or two practice-squad players can be signed as the 54th and 55th players to a team for any game, then go back to the practice squad after that game without having to go through league waivers anymore. That encourages teams to use practice-squad players far more often in regular-season games, for niche roles and on special teams, in particular.
This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 3:56 PM.
