It’s finally time. For most of the wannabe Seahawks anyway.
The Seahawks kick off their 2016 preseason Saturday in Kansas City (1:30 pm PT), and Pete Carroll and his coaches will take the next step in evaluating these guys.
“There (are) so many things to see, so many areas to watch,” he said Friday. “For the coaches, so many exciting guys that see challenge for the first time in a game situation and we’ll start making sense of this thing. This is one huge opportunity to do that.”
Pete Carroll has big plans for C.J. Prosise — call it the Prosise Project — so the hamstring injury that has sidelined him all camp has been a major pain for the coach.
“He’s missed a ton — there’s no other way to put it,” Carroll lamented Tuesday. “He missed a lot in the end of OTAs also. He finished OTAs with three days of good work that showed us what we’re looking for, so it’s just frustrating for everybody — because we know he’s got a lot to learn, he’s got a big role that he has a chance to fill.”
Continue reading Carroll frustrated over delayed Prosise Project
The Seahawks have been hit hard with injuries at the skill positions early in camp — so hard that Pete Carroll quipped Sunday, “We’ve got a bunch of hamstrings on the receivers. They all have two.”
**Bass drum, cymbal crash**
Minor injuries early in camp are pretty common — and not a big concern as long as the team handles them with patience. But, when the injuries stack up at one position, it can cause a domino effect as other players become overworked.
That is what the Seahawks have been trying to avoid through the first 10 days of camp as they have lost five receivers, three tight ends, three running backs and two fullbacks.
When the Seahawks won Super Bowl XLVIII, they were still a bunch of upstarts, misfits and castoffs who really didn’t know what to expect and were just following the Pete Carroll way: Always compete.
By the time they got back to the Super Bowl the next year, they had become seasoned veterans despite still being one of the NFL’s youngest teams.
But they were still young and immature — as so many of them proved during and after Super Bowl XLIX — and they failed to mentally or physically recover from that debacle in time for the next season. They still lacked focus and cohesion early in 2015, and it ended up costing them in the postseason.
But they have rediscovered their sense of purpose this offseason, largely because Carroll has changed the way he delivers his mantra.
Continue reading Carroll, Hawks discover ‘Road to Character’
The addition of Jahri Evans to Seattle’s line is both exciting and confusing — exciting because the Hawks are adding a highly decorated veteran and confusing because Evans plays the position where the Seahawks appear most set.
Mark Glowinski and Germain Ifedi have received glowing praise from Tom Cable and Pete Carroll, leading everyone to believe they will be starting at the guard spots when the season starts. Along with Garry Gilliam at left tackle, those positions looked like the only ones where the Hawks had figured it out.
But the addition of Evans, a six-time Pro Bowl right guard, certainly bolsters the competition there — assuming he is healthy and able to play at age 33.
“He’s not been told he’s the starter or anything like that,” Pete Carroll said. “He’s been brought in to compete; (we’re) hoping he’ll add to the level of our play.
Kam Chancellor has changed his tune — back to the original refrain — and the rest of the Seahawks are whistling along.
The once-beloved safety lost a lot of fans with his ill-fated holdout last year, and he didn’t win too many back with his average play from Week 3 on.
He made the Pro Bowl on name recognition (as so many have over the years), but the fact is he wasn’t the same hard-hitting leader who had been a major factor in each of the previous two Super Bowl runs.
On Monday, he called his 2015 play “up and down” — which probably was an overly favorable analysis.
Asked what he learned from last year, he said, “I learned that this is a business; this is the NFL. But more importantly, it’s about a brotherhood. We started a brotherhood here, and we’ve got to continue what we’ve started. That’s the most important thing.”
Continue reading Chancellor’s renewed commitment: ‘It’s about a brotherhood’
Seahawks fans breathed two sighs of relief after the first day of training camp: Michael Bennett showed up and Pete Carroll said he sees no end to his coaching days.
That’s the kind of positive news everyone wanted to hear as the Hawks prepare to make a run at their second NFL title in four years — and keep it going beyond that.
There was some doubt about whether Bennett would report, based on his recent comments over his contract and a report that his agent was in Seattle last week. But he stayed true to what he has said all offseason: He wants to be a great teammate and help the Seahawks win a Super Bowl.
“I just want to get back to Houston, Texas, and play in the Super Bowl in my hometown, and play against my brother (Martellus of the Patriots),” Bennett said. “That’s all I think about, so I’m here to make that happen.
“I just wanted to show up and be a great teammate. No distractions for the team,” he added. “I just want to be a Seahawk for the rest of my life, and that’s just the most important thing.”
Continue reading Bennett, Carroll bring great news as Hawks open training camp
The Seahawks are expecting to compete for a second Super Bowl title this year, and they’re planning to do it with a completely revamped offensive line.
That scares a lot of fans who view the line as the one thing that could keep this team from winning it all — kind of like it did last year.
But, anyone who thinks they can’t overcome that concern probably forgot what happened in 2013.
It’s no surprise that John Schneider and Pete Carroll are going to be running the Seahawks for at least the next four seasons together. Where else are they going to find a better situation than the one they have built in Seattle?
As Schneider told John Clayton on Tuesday, “You look at all the really good organizations: They have great ownership and they have stability. And I think that’s probably what is most attractive here.’’
Schneider and Carroll have put together a team that is poised to contend for Super Bowl titles for at least the next three seasons (see the projected lineup) — and probably well beyond that. Schneider and Carroll have built an organization with similar staying power to Bill Belichick’s crew in New England.
Continue reading With Schneider’s help, Carroll will finish forging his legacy
The Seahawks’ defense has put together an unprecedented run — becoming the first modern NFL team to go four straight years as the No. 1 scoring unit.
After Seattle shut down Arizona 36-6 in the 2015 season finale to clinch the top spot again, a beaming Pete Carroll said, “I don’t know if there is a record that I could be more proud of than to see our guys go for four straight years and lead the league in scoring defense. I think that is a remarkable accomplishment by a bunch of guys dedicated to the program and what we are doing.”
Carroll’s defense also has given up the fewest yards over the last three years, ranking first in the 2013 and 2014 Super Bowl years and second last season.
That’s a pretty darn good run of defense — and yet the Seahawks know they can become more consistent if they can cover their Achilles’ heel.
Because they have so many veterans on the unit now, the coaches apparently are finally planning to address the soft underbelly of their defense, which has been prone to giving up big chunks of yards and too many touchdowns to tight ends, running backs and slot receivers.
Their plan to fix that issue figures to be one of the big stories of training camp, which begins Saturday.
CHAWK TALK: Everything being said about the Seahawks 