Pete Carroll 'Fired Up' About Progress Made by Seahawks in Virtual Meetings
By every sense of the word, this offseason has been an atypical one for the NFL trying to navigate through a global pandemic.
Starting in March, free agency kicked off on time, but players were not allowed to travel to team facilities and contracts were negotiated remotely. Then in April, the league conducted a virtual NFL draft with coaches, scouts, and other team personnel working from their homes.
As COVID-19 remains a threat to professional sports, the NFL has continued to push forward with plans of conducting a 2020 season. With states enacting stay-at-home guidelines that prevented OTAs or minicamps from happening on the field, the league has adapted by offering teams the opportunity to hold virtual offseason meetings.
Like the rest of the coaches in the league, Pete Carroll didn't know what to expect working with players on Zoom conference calls. But while the situation has been far from ideal, he believes the Seahawks have made the most of tough circumstances over the past couple of months.
"It's been training session, you know, technologically, creatively," Carroll said on a Zoom press conference with local media. "I'm so fired up about what we've been able to accomplish during this time because I had no idea - we didn't have a clue what was going to happen here."
One of Carroll's biggest concerns entering these uncharted waters was trying to keep players fully focused on the tasks at hand. Comparing it to teaching class, he demanded his coaches keep the meetings "proactive and involved and upbeat and moving," similar to how they do things at the team facility.
On his own accord, in one of Seattle's first virtual meetings in May, Carroll brought actor Will Ferrell in as a special guest impersonating tight end Greg Olsen to help break up the monotony of the conference call. While other coaches may not have had the celebrity element to bring to the table, they followed suit by creating engaging presentations and ramping up competition to keep meetings fresh.
Applauding the work done by those behind the scenes to ensure meetings could be conducted without a hitch as well as the efforts of his coaching staff, Carroll is confident the Seahawks have made "incredible progress" during an offseason program unlike any other.
Specifically, Carroll thinks his players will be ahead of the curve mentally compared to where they normally are because of the additional time to zero in on learning the playbook and scheme.
"I think we're smarter at this point because of the added time we've had to work and really focus on the mental side of it than we've ever been. We have been disciplined, strict about it. It's been amazing how much interaction there's been."
In addition to football-related work, Carroll has also used the meetings to have important conversations about social issues such as racial injustice and police brutality. Following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, linebacker Bobby Wagner told reporters the team focused solely on allowing players to express their feelings on what's happening around them, including protests taking place around the country.
"We've always given our guys a chance to tell their story," Carroll said, calling the Seahawks a relationship-based organization. "You want to hear from them and get to know them so that we can better help them and relate to them. This wasn't new for us to do it - it was new for our new players - but everything has just been on point. Everything has been just more right at the essence of what needs to be conveyed."
While many teams have wrapped up virtual meetings, Carroll indicated the Seahawks will conduct them for one more week before giving players a few weeks off. It remains unclear when NFL teams will be allowed to report for training camp, but recent reports suggest it could be as early as mid-July to offset the loss of on-field offseason work.
With the Seahawks basically taking part in a prolonged Phase One of a normal NFL offseason program, Carroll hopes to see all the extra time in the virtual classroom pay off once the players are able to return to the field.
"We're just that much smarter for it and I'm hoping that it'll carry over and we'll get great retention over the break."
