Griffin happy to focus on football

RENTON, Wash. — The path Shaquem Griffin traveled to become a Seahawk means his career will always be viewed just a little bit differently.

But as his football career entered a new phase on Friday, Griffin hoped to become just one of the guys.

“I was ready to get back to football,” Griffin said after the first day of the Seahawks’ rookie mini-camp.

So ready, that during a morning walk-through coach Pete Carroll had to call him aside to tell him to tone things down just a bit.

“’Keem looked very aggressive,” Carroll said. “He was trying to run through it. We had to slow him down some, he was going too hard. We had to chill him out a little bit. But he’s very, very excited about being here.”

Excited to begin his NFL career but also, he said, get life back to normal as much as it possibly can.

Griffin’s story of perseverance — overcoming the amputation of his left hand when he was 4 years old — made him one of the mosttalked about players heading into the NFL draft. He became one of the few players ever not generally expected to be a first-round pick to get invited to the draft.

Then, when he was finally selected on the final day on Saturday to join his twin brother Shaquill with the Seahawks, the family hug and tears they shared served as an image that figures to live on as long as the NFL draft is held.

“A whirlwind,” called it.

But Griffin understands as well as anybody that it’s football that is ultimately the reason for the attention.

“The only thing you really are here for is to play football,” he said. “So when Griffin you’ve got the chance to go to the draft and that part is over with and you get signed to a team and you are ready to go, now it’s back to everything you have ever been doing to get to this point, and that’s play football.”

Just to make sure, though, Carroll told Griffin “stay humble” after his selection last Saturday. That’s a trait that Carroll hopes to reinforce with the Seahawks this season — a team that has little to crow about at the moment after missing the playoffs in 2017 for the first time in six years.

Evidence of that came this week when Griffin turned down a myriad of national media requests — for now, basically doing only what the league and NFL requires — to get back to the main task.

“It’s extremely important for that turn to occur,” Carroll said. “It’s been a great story and it will always be a great story. But right now he’s got work to do.”

Griffin spent Friday’s practice working where the team said he would — weakside linebacker.

That’s the position manned by K.J. Wright, a mainstay of the Seahawks since 2011 but a spot where Seattle has also had little depth for years. No one expects Griffin to beat out Wright anytime soon. But Wright also has just one year remaining on his contract and Griffin could also show enough for the team to figure out ways to get him on the field in sub packages.

Griffin played more on the outside at UCF but said he’s fine with the Seahawks moving him inside.

“I feel pretty comfortable there,” said Griffin, who is listed at 227 pounds but said he has put on a little bit more in preparation for the move to the NFL. “When I was at UCF I played a lot of different positions, so I don’t feel uncomfortable moving around.”