The Seattle Seahawks rookies and younger players weren’t granted any extra practice time this offseason; however, they did get a lot more attention from the coaching staff during the workouts without the veteran players on the field.
“An incredible benefit,” coach Pete Carroll said during his final press conference of minicamp. “Last year at this time they had done nothing, they hadn’t done anything, hadn’t been here for anything . . . So this is the best group we’ve ever had as far as being ready for football.”
The majority of Seattle’s veterans participated in only the virtual portion of the offseason programming, opting to skip the voluntary, in-person sessions out of concerns due to the coronavirus pandemic. With the veterans off the field, the newer players were able to capitalize on all the extra coaching attention.
“They’ve been smart, they’ve been strong, they’ve been consistent, they’ve been active, they’ve been juiced up, and they know they know a lot of football right now,” Carroll continued. “I don’t know what that’s going to mean as we put the team together in preseason and all that, but when those guys go in the game, man we aren’t going to hesitate, we won’t worry about them at all, they’re going to be ready to go, if—and let me send this message out—if they do a good job in the next six weeks staying in shape don’t screw it up.
“We kind of hammered them a little bit and want them to take care of business and come back to camp ready to go.”
With minicamp in the books, the Seahawks players won’t report back to the VMAC until the end of July when training camp kicks off the start of the new season.
