Jason Peters helped get Seahawks a win without playing. Now he has a plan for his debut
Jason Peters had been on his couch in east Texas watching football. Now he was learning a new playbook, new coaches, new teammates and a new city far across the country.
He was cramming. He was getting his legs and 41-year-old body back into playing shape. His first days with the Seahawks were chaotic. He was learning teammates names while practicing with them for the first time.
Yet the former Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro and Super Bowl-champion offensive tackle stopped all that in the middle of last week.
He saw Jake Curhan needed help.
Curhan is the Seahawks’ backup right tackle. He’d been pressed into Seattle’s opening game Sept. 10, when starter Abe Lucas’ chronically sore knee took him in the first half against the Los Angeles Rams. Curhan entered and was out of sorts. His footwork was bad. He wasn’t balanced. He was a liability, not an asset.
Seattle’s offense sunk (and stunk) in a bad, 30-13 home loss to begin this season.
Last Wednesday, while Curhan was preparing to start at right tackle for Lucas against the Detroit Lions, Peters was finishing his first Seahawks practice. He noticed Curhan struggling. Peters pulled aside his new teammate, 16 years younger than him.
They worked together after practice on pass and run blocking. The nine-time Pro Bowl tackle re-set Curhan’s feet. He got Curhan standing more upright. That got him more balanced in his sets. Peters got Curhan firing off the ball more directly and aggressively in run blocking.
“He just reminded me to play like myself, which is something I don’t think I was doing this year through the preseason and that first game,” Curhan said. “He just reminded me to get back to my basics. I worked with J.P. after practice Wednesday and took some extra reps with him Thursday, too. I just got back to the stuff that I know how to do well.
“I knew Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — I felt different than I had all camp.
“Working with J.P....that’s all I needed to do.”
The result: Curhan wowed his teammates, coaches and the surprised, stonewalled Lions with a memorable performance in Detroit last weekend.
He and fill-in left tackle Stone Forsythe did not allow a sack. They barely gave up a pressure of quarterback Geno Smith.
Offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and line coach Andy Dickerson began the game helping Curhan and Forsythe with extra tight ends and running backs chip blocking on the tackles’ defenders. By overtime, the fill-ins had earned the coaches’ trust to block one on one. Curhan won two crucial man-on-man tests with Detroit’s Aidan Hutchinson in OT that allowed Smith to complete a 17-yard pass to Noah Fant and a 16-yard throw late to DK Metcalf, the latter on third and 6.
That set up Smith’s winning touchdown pass to Tyler Lockett. And the Seahawks beat the favored Lions 37-31 — with two back-up tackles.
Thanks to Peters
Coach Pete Carroll hugged Curhan in the locker room following the Detroit game.
Curhan called it one of the best days of his football life.
“It just feels good,” Curhan said over boomin’ bass in the visitors’ locker room at Ford Field following Sunday’s game.
All because Peters helped a guy whose name he didn’t even know the day he pulled him aside.
“I know how important it is. I knew he was going to have to go out there and play,” Peters said of Curhan this week, when the 25-year-old likely starts again for Seattle (1-1) against the Carolina Panthers (0-2) Sunday at Lumen Field with Lucas on injured reserve. “He’s a part of me. He’s a part of the team.
“I love passing my knowledge on to the young guys and seeing in in their game. And I saw it Sunday. He blocked, man, extremely well, and we got the W.”
Like Adrian Peterson
It was just one game. Peters has played in 246 of them in his 20 seasons in the NFL. He’d been with the Seahawks for just three practices before Curhan played the Lions.
Yet Peters was gratified.
“Like a proud dad, man,” he said.
“I hadn’t been here long, but I was working with him and trying to give him little pointers going into the game, because I’d played against Hutchinson (and other Lions). I knew their moves and what they are capable of doing. So I just gave them a little pointers.”
Wednesday, with the Seahawks preparing to play the Panthers, Carroll talked to Peters about his helping Curhan play so well.
The coach said Peters’ work last week reminded him of the first days after iconic running back Adrian Peterson joined the Seahawks late in the 2021 season. Peterson helped Rashaad Penny in particular and Seattle’s running backs to end his 15th and final season in the league.
“It’s the same kind of impact. These guys have such great stature, and they resonate with the younger guys so well that they really can have an impact,” Carroll said. “What’s cool about Jason and Adrian, they cared about helping the guys. It was important to him to see if he could have an impact.
“He contributed to our win in the ways that he could and he’s competing, just like that we hope.”
When will Peters play?
Peters didn’t come all the way to Seattle to watch games. He could have continued doing that in his home in Queen City, Texas, 25 minutes south of Texarkana.
“I’m here to play,” Peters said Wednesday.
He has a deal with Carroll to make that happen.
While teammates do their normal warm-ups and bag drills around him to begin each practice, Peters is with a trainer getting his back and legs stretched and strengthened in personalized drills. When Peters feels his legs have regained the strength and stamina needed to play 60-plus snaps at tackle, he is going to tell Carroll.
That could come next week, when the Seahawks play at one of Peters’ old Eagles NFC East rivals, the New York Giants Oct. 2.
“As long as we are winning, I am going to keep working to get my legs up under me,” Peters said. “And when I’m ready to roll, I will go holler at Pete and go start rollin’.
“It’s a feel thing. I’ve been playing a long time. I know what it takes to get ready to play. Once I feel it, I’m going to go talk to Pete and we’ll get it rollin’.”
This story was originally published September 21, 2023 at 11:00 AM.
