After nearly returning to Seahawks twice before, Mayowa is ‘glad to be back home’

Apr 16, 2020, 1:32 PM

Benson Mayowa is back with the Seahawks after a 7-sack season in Oakland. (Getty)

(Getty)

Seattle Sports

The Seahawks needed to add to their pass rush this offseason and while they haven’t retained Jadeveon Clowney or added a player like Yannick Ngakoue, they did bring back to familiar faces who have been extremely productive away from Seattle: Bruce Irvin and Benson Mayowa.

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Irvin is definitely more well-known in Seattle due to his status as a first-round pick, and he will be coming back to the team that drafted him after stints in Oakland, Atlanta and Carolina, where he had 8.5 sacks in 13 games.

Mayowa may not be too familiar to many Seahawks fans, but he’s been a productive NFL defensive end.

An undrafted defensive end out of Idaho, he made the 2013 Super Bowl-winning team and was inactive for nearly every game. After that, he bounced around the league, playing in Oakland two separate times, Dallas and Arizona. Now, he returns to the Seahawks after recording 7 sacks in 15 games as a rotational player. He played in just 29% of defensive snaps for the Raiders last year.

Mayowa joined 710 ESPN Seattle’s John Clayton and explained why now was the perfect time to re-join the Seahawks, even though he’s had multiple opportunities to come back in past free agency periods.

“It’s a great opportunity to be back,” he said. “Every offseason I kind of get a chance to come back to Seattle. (After) 2017 I had a chance to come up here, they wanted me. (After) 2018 it was the same thing and finally (after) 2019 I was able to come back and I’m glad to be back home, really.”

While Mayowa would have been a welcome addition to the team the last two seasons, he thinks it made sense for him to play elsewhere.

“It was just a better opportunity in Arizona, so I went to Arizona and balled there for a year and then kind of the same thing (happened) in Oakland,” Mayowa told Clayton. “It was just two opportunities that I took and then (after) 2019 it was just the best opportunity for me (to return to the Seahawks). In the league, you want to keep your career going someway somehow, so you check rosters to see how you’d fit in and that’s what I did both times and that’s the reason I didn’t come back and this time it’s just the best opportunity and the right place to continue my career.”

Like many current and former Seahawks who have played for head coach Pete Carroll in Seattle, Mayowa said the culture is something that makes the organization stand out.

“Seattle’s honestly one of the best places that a guy should want to play,” he said. “It’s a great fan base, great coaches, it’s a playoff team and you get to extend your season and you’re practically (always) going there. You want to go to the Super Bowl, you have the team, you have the coaches, you have the nucleus to do it, so that’s the place you want to be if you want to have a long career. Practices are quick, fast and they’re hard, and that’s looking out for the players also.”

Mayowa’s 7 sacks in 2019 would have been the best on the Seahawks by a decent margin. Rasheem Green led the team with 4, and Seattle was one of four teams that failed to record 30 or more sacks. The Seahawks ended the year with 28 and the lack of a pass rush was a huge reason why the defense was among the worst in the NFL. Mayowa hopes he and the rest of the defensive line can come together to get that turned around.

“It’s all about repetition. We’ve got to get in there with each other, we’ve got to learn each other’s rushes and we’ve just got to gel,” Mayowa said. “We’ve got to form that bond as a pass-rushing unit along with being players and playing with each other and that’s sacks right there.”

You can listen to Mayowa’s full conversation, where he also discusses his relationship with Irvin among other topics, at this link or in the player below.

Follow 710 ESPN Seattle’s John Clayton on Twitter.