Seahawks think they got off-season all right
RENTON, Wash. — Because the Seattle Seahawks made it through their off-season program without any obvious incidents or issues, Pete Carroll could finally crack a bit of a joke about their troubled past.
“I think we had our most compliant OTA season. I’m really proud of that, finally,” Carroll said. “Old dog, new tricks. It was hard.”
The Seahawks wrapped up their off-season program Thursday with the conclusion of their mandatory mini-camp.
Seattle’s off-season program was shorter than most others in the NFL because of penalties incurred by the team for previous violations during the spring workouts.
New rules regarding off-season workouts were put in place with the collective bargaining agreement approved before the 2011 season. Between the start of that new CBA and the beginning of the 2016 regular season, there were four violations of those off-season rules, according to the NFL. Three of those were by the Seahawks. The last violation took place last June during an OTA when two players collided and suffered head injuries while going after a deflected pass during a session that required no contact.
Carroll was given a $200,000 fine, a $400,000 fine was given to the team and Seattle lost a fifth-round pick from April’s draft.
And Seattle was docked three OTA practices from this off-season.
Despite getting less practice time than others, Carroll felt the changes made to avoid any future penalties during the off-season workouts kept Seattle from falling behind.
“We finally figured that out and in doing so, we were able to up the reps on guys and I think we’re the smartest we’ve been coming out of this camp at any time in any of the past years,” Carroll said. “We’ve had the most situation work.” Seattle was also penalized for off-season violations in 2012 and 2014. Carroll said the non-contact period is beneficial in terms of getting players on the field and getting reps, but there are some major evaluations that can’t be made until training camp arrives.
“We adjusted. That was part of trying to figure out how to do this the way that they want us and fit in with all the rules,” Carroll said. “We think we did our best job with that. We think we made up ground that we hadn’t made in years past.”