BROCK AND SALK

Why Seahawks think ‘something special’ is happening again

May 22, 2023, 9:06 AM

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll celebrates at the end of an Oct. 23, 2022 win over the Chargers. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

BY BRENT STECKER

Editor of SeattleSports.com

Pete Carroll is talking about the glory days of the Seattle Seahawks, but only as a way to illustrate how confident he feels about his team going into the 2023 season.

Video: Why Huard thinks Adams should be at Seahawks OTAs

In a May 12 press conference during the Seahawks’ rookie minicamp, Carroll related how he feels about the makeup of Seattle’s current roster to successful teams he’s coached in the past. The way he said it jumped out to Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

First, here’s the May 12 comment that Carroll made:

There’s a sense, you know, of something special happening. I felt this before in other years. Coming off of the year before, not quite getting the business taken care of, and you can feel that it’s there for us. That’s why we were so excited to go into the draft with the numbers that we had and the opportunity that we had, and then we feel like we really accomplished a lot there. … We’ve got nothing but really high expectations around here.

Former NFL quarterback and current FOX college football analyst Brock Huard shared his take on what Carroll said during a recent Blue 88 segment on Brock and Salk, and it has a lot to do with the buy-in shown by the young core the Seahawks are cultivating.

“Because the guys are absolute pros,” Huard responded when co-host Mike Salk asked why the expectations are high like Carroll said. “They want to be there and work at it. … He’s got a bunch of dudes that want to work – a bunch of pros. Last year’s (draft) class, he said it to us repeatedly, wise, old souls, man. Old souls, and they love to work. And this group coming in, man, they are a bunch of pros.”

That sentiment was echoed when Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron joined Brock and Salk last Wednesday and spoke about running back Zach Charbonnet, one of Seattle’s two second-round picks from the 2023 NFL Draft.

“What did Shane Waldron say about Zach Charbonnet? ‘That guy’s just a pro. He just gets it,'” Huard relayed.

With voluntary OTAs (Organized Team Activities) beginning Monday for a younger Seahawks group that has something to prove, Huard said it’s starting to look like the version of the Seattle Seahawks that Carroll initially built into a perennial playoff contender about a decade ago.

“You eliminate the drama and you eliminate the ‘Yeah, but it’s voluntary,’ and everybody goes back to actually competing and wanting to be on the practice field,” Huard said. “They were on the practice field 20 minutes early. They want to play, they want to compete. That’s why it’s energized the head coach the way it has.”

Huard answers three football questions during the daily Blue 88 segment, which airs at 7:45 on each edition of Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports. Listen to Friday’s Blue 88 in the final segment of the podcast below.