Matt Gotel from Lakes High indicates he’s returning to Seahawks. They need D-tackles
Matt Gotel says he is back, where he wants to be. Where he grew up.
Where he paid his own way to fly back from the East Coast to get his first free-agent tryout and first attract the Seahawks last year.
The former Lakes High School Lancer posted on his social-media account Wednesday he was coming back to the Seahawks. That presumably is onto their practice squad, a day after the team waived him and he went unclaimed in the waiver period that ended Wednesday morning.
“Back in action! #seahawks,” Gotel wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Coach Pete Carroll said Saturday in Green Bay following the team’s final preseason game he wanted his entire 16-man practice squad to be players Seattle had in training camp and games this month, if he can pull that off.
That’s possible: No players the Seahawks waived Tuesday were claimed by another team.
Gotel is one of those waived players from training camp the Seahawks can use.
The interior of their defensive line remains their thinnest position of proven players, and of players who have gotten through opposing offensive lines into backfields. Gotel did that routinely in training camp practices and preseason games, after signing back with Seattle Aug. 17.
The former West Florida defensive lineman at Division-II West Florida by way of Snow Junior College was with the Seahawks last preseason. That was after he got himself to a Seattle local tryout in the spring.
Two weeks before the 2022 NFL draft, the 24-year-old Tacoma native was in Pensacola with his fiancee Sophia Molloy. They went to high school together at Lakes in Lakewood; she ran the mile on the Lancers’ track team. Gotel was training daily in Pensacola, around his campus at the University of West Florida.
That’s when he found out the Seahawks were having a local tryout for prospects. It was two weeks before the draft. Those who could make their way to Seattle could take their long shot at making the team’s 90-man offseason roster.
“I flew here, on my own dollar,” Gotel told The News Tribune last year.
The Seahawks signed him last spring. They liked what they saw with his quickness as a tackle in their new 3-4 scheme last preseason. He played in two games for them last summer. The Seahawks released him, and Atlanta signed him. The Falcons released him after a short stint.
Gotel played this spring in all 10 games the San Antonio Brahmas played in the XFL. He tallied 23 total tackles, then signed back with Atlanta earlier this preseason before Seattle called him again.
Based on what he said about being with the Seahawks last preseason, he’s thrilled to apparently be headed to the practice squad Seattle will officially announced later this week or early next.
“I just want to contribute — in any way I can,” Gotel said last year. “Whether that’s on the practice squad., on the 53-man roster, I just want to help this program, this club, win.”
What’s he love about his hometown NFL team?
“Their culture, number one. That’s the number-one thing I loved about this,” Gotel said last year. “I learned their culture when I came here on the local visit, local workout.
“It’s an amazing culture here. It makes you want to do great things.”
This story was originally published August 30, 2023 at 12:14 PM.
