Past an injury scare, Seahawks’ DK Metcalf wears support for prison fellowship, the deaf
DK Metcalf was sitting on the turf. In pain.
And the 6-foot-4, 235-pound hulk of a wide receiver was worried. So were teammates, including Tyler Lockett and Kenneth Walker. They were on one knee around Metcalf as he sat on the field getting his lower left leg examined by two team medical personnel.
Did he fear his injury that stopped the Seahawks’ game with the New York Jets with 3 minutes left in the third quarter last weekend, after an incomplete pass thrown his way on which Jets linebacker Quincy Williams hit him in the leg in the New Jersey Meadowlands, was serious?
“Hell, yeah!” Metcalf said Wednesday.
“I am not just going to sit down there. My foot went numb. I’ve never felt that. The only other time I felt that was when I broke my neck (in a game his final season at the University of Mississippi getting hit on a kickoff, in October 2018). (That time) my arm went numb and it felt like it was on fire.
“And that same thing that happened in the (Jets) game. My foot was numb. (Orthopedic team physician) Dr. Ed Khalfayan came over, and he was like, ‘What’s wrong?’ I was like, ‘Bro, it feels like a puddle of blood is in my cleat.’ And he just started pressing my foot and he was like, ‘Does that hurt?’ I was like, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Oh, you’re going to be fine.’
“And then I was like, ‘All right, bet.’”
He missed two plays.
Metcalf finished his team’s rally to a 26-21 win over New York. That has the Seahawks at 7-5 and in first place in the NFC West by a game over the Cardinals. Metcalf is readying for Seattle at Arizona (6-6) Sunday in Glendale, Arizona (1:05 p.m., channel 7).
So what happened that had him on the ground in fear during the win over the Jets?
Metcalf said Dr. Khalfayan told him Williams “hit a peroneal nerve in my knee that shot down to my foot, and it was just like hitting your funny bone.”
And what about that shoulder injury the Seahawks listed for why he missed practices Wednesday and Thursday last week before the win over the Jets?
“What shoulder?” Metcalf said.
His rookie head coach isn’t surprised. Mike Macdonald said back in September, before coaching Metcalf in a regular-season game: “He’s just a beast, man.
“He’s something.”
DK Metcalf’s causes
Against the Cardinals Sunday, Metcalf will be wearing a new shoe over that foot that briefly went numb in New Jersey.
His game shoes, in this year’s NFL My Cleats My Cause initiative, are designed to raise awareness for prisoner fellowship plus the deaf community.
The sixth-year NFL veteran is again amplifying Virgina-based Prison Fellowship, the nation’s largest Christian nonprofit equipping the Church to serve currently and formerly incarcerated people, and Tukwila-based SOUND Behavioral Health’s deaf services program.
He also wore cleats for Prison Fellowship for a Seahawks game in 2019, his rookie season.
“I was in church when I was a sophomore or junior in college,” Metcalf, who turns 27 next week, said, “and the preacher was talking about prisoners and I just never thought about the prisoners and how they don’t have a second chance at life. A lot of people just write them off and just forget about them.
“But with Prison Fellowship, they get a second chance at life or just a second chance of hearing the word of God. And with that organization, you have people who go in and visit the prisoners and just have Bible study with them and just treat them like humans other than just a curse to society.”
Metcalf visited youth inside a Seattle-area juvenile-detention center last month during a players’ day off with Seahawks teammates Noah Fant, Tyler Mabry and others. Team director of security Dave Love arranged the visit.
“It was a good experience just to talk to the younger men and women in there,” Metcalf said, “and just, basically, the whole message of ‘You’re not forgotten. You do have a life outside of here that you will be able to live, and just don’t forget about it.’”
Metcalf, Fant and Mabry spent a couple hours with those sentenced to the juvenile detention center.
“They were asking me questions like ‘Lock (Tyler Lockett) was better than me. How was it playing with Pete (Carroll)? How was it playing with Marshawn (Lynch)? Do I think we’re going to make the playoffs? Why do I crash out on the field?’” Metcalf said, in the last query using the slang term for going wild to the point of getting punished; Metcalf has been fined multiple times by the league for ejections and unsportsmanlike conduct in his career.
“They were very truthful, very honest. And I respected them for it,” he said.
His answer when asked about playing with Lynch, the legendary Seahawks running back with which Metcalf was a teammate for a few weeks at the end of the 2019 season, Lynch’s final one in the NFL at the age of 33?
“I mean he’s a Hall of Famer in my book. Great player and, a great person off the field,” Metcalf said. “And for those three or four games that I had with him, it was just great to be around a guy of that caliber who knows himself in and out — and doesn’t care what anybody else thinks about him.”
Metcalf said his answer when asked by those inside the juvenile-detention center about why he “crashed out” during games he said: “I said it’s a physical game and sometimes you’ve got to crash out.”
The SOUND partnership for My Cleats My Cause this year continues Metcalf’s interest in raising awareness for the deaf community. It began when he took an American Sign Language class while attending Ole Miss.
It has continued with touchdown celebrations of Metcalf signing American Sign Language messages on national television.
“We are so proud and thankful DK Metcalf chose SOUND Behavioral Health’s Deaf Services Program for the My Cause My Cleats campaign,” CEO Katrina Egner said in a statement provided by SOUND. “Mental health disorders in the deaf and hard of hearing community are approximately 25% higher than in the general population. SOUND Behavioral Health is the only community mental health organization in Washington that has a Deaf Services department, and we are grateful to DK for helping us raise awareness of the critical need to support our deaf and hard of hearing community.”
Metcalf is one of three NFL players to have their cause cleats this year designed by artificial intelligence, in partnership with Seattle-based Amazon and its Amazon Web Services. Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen and Las Vegas Raiders pass rusher Maxx Crosby are the others.
“Oh, it was all AI-generated,” Metcalf said of his gray-and-white cleats that have red laces with blue and pink accents representing Prison Fellowship and SOUND Behavioral Health. “I thought it turned out great, from not having a human doing it to having a computer doing it.
“I’m not too much into AI, but it turned out good.”
