Ty Okada says ‘camaraderie’ of Seahawks will shine on ‘Hard Knocks’

If you make it out to Seattle Seahawks camp, you won’t need to look far or for long to see HBO’s camera crew darting around the Virginia Mason Athletic Center’s practice field.

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The Super Bowl winners are the featured team of the newest season of “Hard Knocks” (airing Tuesdays at 6 p.m. on HBO Max), and mixed among the normal sights of camp are some new things: a boom mic hovering over linemen drills, a camera operator standing just behind Abe Lucas as he chats with a coach, an entire crew following Mike Macdonald as he walks over to the podium for a post-practice press conference.

Safety Ty Okada isn’t letting himself become distracted by the cameras, but he’s also not a fan of being spotlighted. As he sat down to chat with us on Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy ahead of practice, he joked about how hard it is to go under the radar when he’s one of the mic’d up players for the day.

Even though Okada doesn’t love being the star of the show, he’s excited for people outside of Seattle to see the things he loves most about his team. We all know about the biggest personalities (his teammate Devon Witherspoon is sure to be a hit), but what’s something we might all learn that isn’t as obvious?

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“I think the attention that we put on our camaraderie as a team,” Okada said. “The relationship pieces that we have and the relationship building that we’re very intentional about is awesome. Coach (Macdonald) speaks about it all the time. And maybe for an outsider looking in they’ll get a little bit of insight into how we’re able to build those relationships and continue to grow in that facet. So, I’m excited for people to be able to witness that and see it for themselves.”

The effort to build that camaraderie has been evident from the jump, but felt especially relevant last year in Macdonald’s second season. A behind-the-scenes feature from ESPN highlighted the coach’s “walk and talks” for players. The Seahawks also joked about how much team building arose from shadow boxing, a story that was talked about so much that Derick Hall and Jarran Reed provided a demonstration for media ahead of the Super Bowl. And before they even got to the Super Bowl, following a loss to the Rams in Week 11, a very public defense of quarterback Sam Darnold from teammate Ernest Jones made it all clear: this team believed in each other, whether you did or not.

Entering 2026, that belief in themselves will be more important than ever. Because Seattle won’t just attempt to become only the second team since 2000 to repeat as champs; they’ll be doing it as a bit of an underdog. Most critics are already favoring the Rams’ stacked roster over a Seahawks team that lost its offensive coordinator and Super Bowl MVP.

The secondary also lost two faces: Coby Bryant and Riq Woolen. Okada was already set for a bigger role this season, and that is even more true following offseason surgery for safety Nick Emmanwori. Macdonald has left open the possibility of Emmanwori returning for Week 1, though there’s been no clear timeline. That won’t mean Okada taking up Emmanwori’s role as a hybrid safety-linebacker, though it will mean sharpening his own play and helping younger teammates — something he’s already done with rookie safety Bud Clark.

“Bud’s one of my favorite guys,” Okada said of the second-round pick out of TCU. “He’s awesome. He brings great energy, enthusiasm, he’s always super positive, he loves to fly around, and he makes plays. And any way that I can help him progress, as not only a player but as a person, I want to be there and be that catalyst for him. I was very fortunate I had guys like Quandre (Diggs) and Jamal (Adams) and Julian (Love) all in my room when I came in and that was really special for me.”

Catch the full Bump and Stacy conversation with Seahawks safety Ty Okada in the podcast below or the video at the top of this post. Bump and Stacy airs live from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

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