When Seahawks coach Pete Carroll ushered Michael Bennett to the sidelines during a raucous practice Thursday, he also was sending a message.
It's one that Bennett said Saturday he received loud and clear without any complaint.
"He just said he wanted to show the team if he can kick me out as one of the best players on the team he will do it to anybody," Bennett said. "Just a message. It's cool with me."
Bennett was ejected after getting into a tussle with offensive guard Mark Glowinski. On the play, Bennett jumped offsides through a gap between Glowinski and center Justin Britt. When Glowinski appeared to tap Bennett from behind as the play neared its end, Bennett turned and went after Glowinski as well as basically any other offensive linemen who came in his wake.
After initially being led away by teammates including Cliff Avril and Jordan Hill, Bennett tried to escape and circle back to get at Glowinski before finally being restrained.
When the first team defense took the field a few plays later, Bennett jogged over to assume his normal spot on the line. But Carroll nudged him and led him to the sidelines, instead, and Bennett did not take part in the rest of practice. Later, Carroll said "sometimes we lose a little bit of the poise that we need. We can't play like that."
"I understand what kind of standard that is upheld from me and the rest of the players and that's just a part of the game," Bennett said Saturday in what were his first comments since the incident. "You get heated and to being able to calm down and be able to come back and talk to your teammates and remember that you are teammates _ sometimes you forget about that as players and you have to make sure you don't forget that and remember to take care of each other because at the end of the day we need everybody on the field every game."
Bennett has been involved in his share of scrapes throughout training camp, several also involving rookie right guard Germain Ifedi.
Bennett, though, said he has no issues with Ifedi or any of the other young offensive linemen.
"They're all pretty good players and they're just figuring out what's their position in the NFL and what's their position on the team," he said. "They just try to make a name for themselves. That's understandable."
Bennett characterized the seemingly daily tussles as just part of the deal during training camp.
"That is just part of training camp, you know, that is just how it is," he said. "You get out here and everybody knows. Every position in the NFL is kind of fancy positions from linebackers to safeties to corners and quarterbacks. Really the game is played upfront. The thing about corners and safeties and linebackers, you may hit somebody every other play or every five plays as a corner, maybe every ten plays, but as a defensive lineman, you hit every play, you know. Play one you're going to hit somebody, play two you are going to hit somebody, play three you're going to hit somebody so we have the most physical position in the whole NFL. It is a physical game, you know, so tempers get going and there is a lot of passion to play upfront."
Ifedi noted on Thursday that Bennett has given him advice on how to handle himself on and off the field as he enters his rookie season _ each player is from Texas A&M.
"He's from my alma mater, he's an Aggie, so whenever Aggies come along, he has that Aggie network," Bennett said. "I definitely just want to help them from advice, to agent advice, stuff like that. All kinds of things we learned along the way, how to take care of your body, how to be a professional, what you need to do, what don't you need to do, what you need to stay away from. That's the most important advice you can give a player when they come into the league because you don't want too many players to make the same mistakes that players before them made. That's our job, as a group of players in the NFL, is to take care of the young guys because at the end of the day, they're the ones who are going to take over the game when we're done. We've got four or five more years and then they got 10 years going into this thing. They're the ones that have to leave their name and stuff on the game, so we just have to help them figure their way out."
Glowinski said earlier in the week that he thinks the veteran defensive linemen may be challenging the younger offensive linemen to try to prepare them for the way it will be on gameday.
Bennett agreed that he now thinks that is part of his role as he enters his eighth NFL season at the age of 30.
"I give them tips because I've played against some of the best offensive linemen in the league, so there's things that I can see a little bit of flaw or they see something that they're doing," Bennett said. "I just want to help them because at the end of the day, it's all about getting better. I want everybody to be the best they can be, because when you're playing in this league, you need everybody to be at the top of their game. A lot of those guys are going to be great players and they just need to figure out what do they need to do against the best. Right now I'm one of the best in the NFL, so them getting a chance to go against some of the best players like Cliff (Avril) and Rube (Ahtyba Rubin), Bobby (Wagner), all these guys rushing against them whenever they do, it's just more time for them to learn. (Justin) Britt is playing a new position and so many different guys are learning the game as they go and we have so much advice and so much game experiences. It's our job to help them improve and I think that's what we've been developing as a team."
