Seahawks’ DK Metcalf, days after his ejection and latest scrap: “I’ve gotta grow up.”
DK Metcalf, fresh off getting ejected from his latest game in season of emotional outburst, has learned one overarching takeaway.
“I’ve gotta grow up.”
The Seahawks’ record-setting, Pro Bowl wide receiver said that Thursday, four days after he was ejected late in the Seahawks’ latest loss at Green Bay for grabbing and yanking on the face masks of two Packers and pushing that of a third defender during a fight following a play.
Coach Pete Carroll said he talked to Metcalf on the team flight home from Wisconsin Sunday night and again at Seahawks headquarters Monday.
It’s become a routine talk this season. Too routine.
“Me and Pete have talked three times. I think I have had an outburst three times, so we’ve talked three times,” Metcalf said. “The conversations have always gotten better.
“I am a passionate player. I’m never going to back down from anything. He understands that. But at the same time I’m starting to become a leader on this team. And I’ve gotta grow up, and continue to get better.
“I know I am still a work in progress.”
Metcalf said: “I don’t like to use my age as an excuse. But I sometimes I forget I am still just 23 years old.
“I will continue just to grow each day. And mistakes are going to get fixed.”
Team captain Bobby Wagner walked over to the Metcalf at the edge of the sideline with 83 seconds left in Seattle’s 17-0 loss at Green Bay last weekend, the Seahawks’ sixth loss in nine games. Wagner was the first one to approach and talk to Metcalf since officials had disqualified him from the game.
“Tired of losing,” Metcalf said after the defeat when asked to explain his actions in Green Bay.
At the sideline last Sunday, Metcalf didn’t want any of what Wagner was offering. He angrily waved away the All-Pro linebacker and 10th-year veteran.
Wagner again went up to Metcalf after the game. Metcalf said Wagner’s message to him was: “You are not the first person to do this.”
“Like I just said, I’ve got to grow up and assume my role as a leader on this team and look at myself in that aspect,” Metcalf said.
Wagner’s cool with it
Wagner grinned Wednesday when asked about Metcalf blowing him off on the field in Green Bay.
“Yeah, I’m older than him,” Wagner said, “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. “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 the third-year receiver’s penalties, 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.”
Metcalf acknowledged that Thursday, that more opponents are trying to basically goad him into altercations and that more people are watching him.
He also said Packers defensive backs Henry Black and Eric Stokes “challenged” him, and it was something that was building throughout the game.
“I’m not going to back down from anything. I felt I was being challenged,” Metcalf said.
“And growing up is part of realizing that challenge and making the best decision for the team, and not for myself.
“Yes, it was brewing throughout the whole game. Some other factors led into that.”
Fined, flagged
NFL game officials have penalized him seven times this year. That includes for taunting a Colts defender while Seahawks teammate Gerald Everett was scoring a touchdown in the opener and unsportsmanlike conduct for jumping into and holding onto the goal-post base’s pad following his touchdown catch against Jacksonville Oct. 31.
He was also fined following the Seahawks’ loss to New Orleans for repeated scraps following plays with Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore. The league fiend Lattimore $10,815 and Metcalf $6,949.
He is facing a fine for his ejection in Green Bay, too.
“I was doing the same thing last year, with Stephon Gilmore (then of New England), Jalen Ramsey (the Rams’ star cornerback). I’ve been doing it,” he said. “I’m just under a tiny microscope right now. Everybody’s watching me to see what I do and how I react.
“I am taking that into account every time I go into a game and prepare for a week, that I’m being looked at.
“So, just another challenge that I’ve got to overcome.”
After Carroll and Russell Wilson talked to Metcalf about extra curriculars with opponents following more woofing against the Tennessee Titans in week two, Metcalf responded with the best game of his season: 107 yards receiving on six catches with a touchdown in Seattle’s loss at Minnesota.
Wilson says Metcalf is meeting his latest challenge.
“DK is hyper-focused right now on what we need to do. He wants to win,” Wilson said. “He wants to be great.
“I think he’s just super-passionate about the game, super-passionate about winning. Wants to do it all. As he continues to play the game, everybody is going to challenge him, because he’s DK. That’s just how it is. He’s a star.
“There’s nobody better than DK as far as work ethic. There is nobody better than him as far as being a great teammate. ...
“I have no doubt about DK Metcalf.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 1:52 PM.
