JAKE AND STACY

Seahawks Training Camp: What Pete Carroll said that caught Jake Heaps off-guard

Aug 2, 2021, 12:37 AM | Updated: 10:35 am

Seahawks Pete Carroll...

Pete Carroll's Seahawks started training camp at team headquarters in Renton last week. (Getty)

(Getty)

With Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll entering his 12th season with the team, we’ve all heard him talk a lot by this point. So much so that it’s rare for him to say something all that eyebrow-raising.

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In the early days of Seahawks training camp last week, however, Carroll said something during one of his regular press conferences that caught 710 ESPN Seattle’s Jake Heaps, one of Carroll’s former players, off-guard.

While attention is firmly on negotiations with safety Jamal Adams as the two sides look to agree on a contract extension past the 2021 season, Adams isn’t the only key Seahawks player seeking an extension. Left tackle Duane Brown, the team’s best offensive lineman, has also expressed his desire for a new deal.

With Brown already having made that public in June, it was only natural for a reporter to ask Carroll last week about the status of negotiations with Brown. Surprisingly, Carroll wasn’t interested in the question at all, quickly responding, “No, we’re not talking about that.”

“What caught me off-guard was the fact that Pete Carroll pretty much shut down any conversation about Duane Brown and a contract extension,” Heaps said during Friday’s edition of Jake and Stacy. “We’ve never really heard Pete Carroll talk like that before – not in regards to an extension, not in regards to a veteran leader. ‘No, we’re not talking about that.’ Like, there was no positive spin to that that Pete Carroll usually puts on, tries to diffuse the situation.”

So should that be a bad sign for the future of Brown, a four-time Pro Bowler who will turn 36 this month, in Seattle?

“It very well may be that, hey, we’re focused all-in on the Jamal Adams contract extension and we’re not going to worry about (Brown’s contract) until that gets done, and maybe Pete doesn’t want to say that publicly,” Heaps said. “But that’s a very interesting way to approach the Duane Brown situation, and I’m not sure exactly how to read that yet.”

Despite Brown’s age, there’s not much reason to think the Seahawks are looking to move on from him after 2021. As Heaps points out, Seattle doesn’t have an obvious successor to the stalwart left tackle.

“I can’t imagine that they’re going to walk into that situation and not want to get an extension done for Duane Brown. They don’t have an exit strategy,” Heaps said. “… Duane Brown is one of your clear leaders in the locker room and one of your best players on this team, one of the most important Seahawks that you have on this roster. I just thought that was a very surprising response when (Carroll) was asked about that deal, and it does perk your ears up and make you wonder how that extension talk is going to go with Duane Brown.”

You can hear Heaps’ full comments in the Four-Down Territory segment of Jake and Stacy in the podcast at this link or in the player below.

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Seahawks Training Camp: What Pete Carroll said that caught Jake Heaps off-guard