Seattle Seahawks’ often-penalized DK Metcalf: ‘I’m not going to change the way I play’
Though his coach says he needs to change his penalty ways, DK Metcalf is clear.
“I’m not going to change the way I play,” the Seahawks’ star and often-penalized wide receiver said, almost defiantly, Wednesday.
That was three days after Metcalf’s fifth penalty in five games, another at the end or after a play. It began with him taunting the Rams between plays in the opening game last month and continued through Seattle’s loss at Cincinnati last weekend.
No wide receiver in the NFL has been penalized as much as Metcalf this season.
The same was true in 2022. And in 2021.
He’s been ejected from a game, in 2021 at Green Bay. The league has fined him multiple times, including $29,785 last November for berating an official.
His latest flag came Sunday in the Seahawks’ 17-13 loss to the Bengals. Late in the first half, at the end of one of the few times Seattle successfully got the ball into the hands of decisive rookie running back Zach Charbonnet, officials flagged Metcalf for pushing Cincinnati’s Cam Taylor-Britt to the ground. The 6-foot-4, 230-pound Metcalf shoved the cornerback, five inches and 30 pounds smaller, in the chest after the play.
He did it about 40 yards down the field from where Charbonnet had completed a catch and run for 6 yards.
The penalty was for unnecessary roughness. It was far more unnecessary than rough.
Pete Carroll’s penalty board
After the game and again Wednesday, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said he’s talked with Metcalf about the need to end the needless fouls. Carroll said he has a penalty board he shows the team each Monday following games, and that Metcalf was again at the top of it.
Metcalf scoffed at that.
“It’s just a board to me,” he said. “I mean, I’m not going to change the way I play.
“If you look at the penalties, there’s a taunting, unnecessary roughness, facemask, holding and, I think there was one more in there.”
There was: for an illegal blindside block, delivered with his back to the goal line to which Seattle was advancing.
“So,” he said, with a shrug, “I mean, I’m doing pretty good if I look at it and judge myself, how I play.
“(I) just try to be consistent and have ‘clean’ hands or whatever the case may be.
“But, no, I’m not going to change who I am as a player or person.”
Asked if his personal fouls are more about “getting caught up in the moment,” Metcalf said: “Have you had a bad day at work sometimes?”
“That’s all I nail it down to,” he said. “Nobody’s perfect. I’m my own person. Like I said, I’m a competitive person.
“So I’m not going to shy away from (anything) if you put a penalty-board screen up. I mean, I’m just going to continue to be me.”
Metcalf said that about 20 minutes after Carroll talked about Metcalf’s penalty trend that is bordering on habit.
“We all have to acknowledge it,” Carroll said, “and recognize what the issues are, whatever they are.
“In this case, he’s getting called. He knows he’s got to clean it up. We’ve got to make sure that we’re aware of how they are calling stuff. He’s a very aggressive player, very physical. And it stands out. He draws attention because of that.
“We’ve got to be cleaner. And he knows it. And he’s got to get it done.”
DK Metcalf talking to officials
Metcalf and Carroll spent time during a media timeout following the receiver’s latest penalty in Cincinnati talking to the two officials who were deep down the field and flagged Metcalf for shoving Taylor-Britt to the ground. Metcalf told the officials he didn’t hear the whistles ending the play and didn’t know it was over. He was, in his mind, playing through a whistle he never heard.
“I just asked him to blow his whistle. And he said, ‘I’ll try my best.’ And that was it,” Metcalf said Wednesday.
The taught mechanics for officials in high school football through the NFL is for covering officials at or near the end of a play to blow their whistles to signal that. Officials 40 yards from that spot do not blow their whistles. If they did, there would be eight whistles at the end of every one of 150-some snaps a game, one whistle for each official on the field, all across NFL stadiums in each game.
Talk about unnecessary.
Metcalf says he takes pride in his physical play, through the end of plays. When he’s doing it 30, 40, 50 yards down the field he doesn’t realize the play is over.
The solution here, of course, is: Don’t do it 30, 40, 50 yards down the field away from the play.
Metcalf says as he does his warm-up runs along the sideline before games, officials routinely make a point of saying to him “Hey, let’s try to play a clean game today?”
Seahawks captain Bobby Wagner says he’s sure opposing defensive backs go up to officials before games saying “Watch 14!”
So, yes, his reputation precedes him onto the field each Sunday.
“They are just going off what they see on film,” Metcalf said of officials. “And I’ve got to respect it.
“I don’t feel like I was a problem, or I need to make progress in a certain area. Football is a violent sport, and this is my one opportunity to be violent, on game day.
“And I’m going to continue to do that.”
This story was originally published October 18, 2023 at 2:22 PM.
