Bobby Wagner likens DK Metcalf’s ejection, emotion to Richard Sherman’s of Seahawks past
DK Metcalf had just stomped off Lambeau Field, ejected from the Seahawks’ most recent game because he got in a fight.
Another one.
Team captain Bobby Wagner walked over to the Metcalf at the edge of the sideline. Wagner was the first one to approach and talk to Metcalf since the wide receiver had yanked the face masks of two Packers following a play late in garbage time of Seattle’s 17-0 loss at Green Bay.
“Tired of losing,” Metcalf said after the game in explaining his actions in Green Bay.
At the sideline last Sunday, Metcalf didn’t want any of what Wagner was offering. The 23-year-old receiver angrily tromped away from the All-Pro linebacker and 10th-year veteran.
“Yeah, I’m older than him,” Wagner said, with a small grin, “so he’ll be OK.
“Sometimes you don’t want to listen to the people older than you, and then they say the right trigger words to get you to listen.
“So...I know some words.”
Wagner said his intent was to give Metcalf perspective in the heated moment, that the younger Seahawk shouldn’t turn being frustrated with losing for the sixth time in nine games into something bigger.
“I just was talking to him wanting him to understand that this moment was bigger than it needed to be,” Wagner said Wednesday. “That’s really all it is.
“I’ve been around a lot of passionate people, like ‘Sherm’ (Richard Sherman) and Kam (Chancellor). Sometimes the camera caught it, sometimes it didn’t.
“This is a passionate game, a game played with a lot of emotions, and sometimes you need a person to bring you back in.”
Wagner sees a lot of Sherman, the team’s former fiery All-Pro and Super Bowl-winning cornerback Wagner won big with from 2012-17, in Metcalf.
And he thinks that’s a positive.
That’s why Metcalf’s seven penalties this season with the third-year receiver’s taunting and jawing with opposing defensive backs following plays don’t bother Wagner all that much.
“No, it doesn’t concern me,” Wagner said. “I think it’s part of growth. There’s a lot of growth when you (first come) in the league. ...
“I remember having moments when I was kind of angry and frustrated and things of that nature on the sidelines. But I wasn’t at the level (of stardom and excellence) that he is with everything he has going on: the chase down (in Arizona last season of Budda Baker in a famously fast 100-yard sprint on a goal-line interception), the stuff that he does off the field, with his hair (Metcalf’s is blue).
“So it’s like there’s a lot of eyes on him. They are always going to be looking, and seeing.
“I don’t think anything that has happened is out of the norm,” Wagner said.
The attention Metcalf gets, and draws to himself, reminds Wagner of Sherman, particularly after Sherman tipped away Colin Kaepernick’s end-zone pass from Michael Crabtree to win the NFC title for the Seahawks and send them to Super Bowl 48 at the end of the 2013 season.
That play and Sherman’s combative on-field interview with Fox Sports’ Erin Andrews immediately following it put all eyes on Sherman nationally.
“I think it’s very similar to Sherm,” Wagner said of Metcalf right now. “After Sherm made that play, everybody’s was looking and watching and they created this narrative that Sherm was this angry player that none of his teammates liked. But if you spoke with every teammate and you spoke with every person — and I’m pretty sure you guys (reporters) would share the same sentiment — he was an amazing person, a caring person, a thoughtful person.
“So that’s just kind of the message (to Metcalf),” Wagner said. “To control your narrative.”
Wagner, co-captain Russell Wilson and coach Pete Carroll have talked to Metcalf multiple times this season about his emotions towards opponents following plays. Wilson and Carroll spoke at length to Metcalf in September following woofing with Tennessee Titans defensive backs. Metcalf responded with his best game of the season: 107 yards on six catches and a touchdown the following weekend in Seattle’s loss at Minnesota.
The coach and team are hoping Metcalf responds similarly this week when the Seahawks (3-6) try to save their teetering season at home against the division-leading Arizona Cardinals (8-2).
Wilson used the same word Wagner did about Metcalf: passionate.
“I don’t think DK is emotional. I think he’s passionate,” Wilson said. “He loves his craft. ... “You’d rather him be passionate than not. That’s the good thing about DK, he always wants to do everything right. ...That’s why I love playing with him.”
Carroll spoke to Metcalf again about his emotions on the field while on the team plane home from Wisconsin late Sunday night, and again at the Seahawks’ facility Monday.
“Well, we are on the topic,” Carroll said. “The last thing he wants is for this to continue. He’s been really good for five or six weeks now, he’s just been playing ball and digging in. He wants to make sure that’s what his work stands for.
“So I’m anxious to see him come back out this week and get going.”
Carroll said after the loss to the Packers the Seahawks need to run the ball more. Metcalf said after he and Tyler Lockett got eight targets each in Green Bay he wants the ball more, in the pass game.
“We’ve got to get the ball to our playmakers and let them make plays,” Metcalf said.
So, yes, the Seahawks’ problems and frustrations are layered.
For 3-6 teams, they usually are.
“We always want him to get the football. We want Tyler to get the ball, and we want Gerald (Everett, the tight end) to get the ball,” Carroll said. “ Those are the thoughts that we have, so the game plan is set to get that done, if we can.
“That’s our intent.”
