Hard Knocks ... Hits
A fluff-free episode of Seahawks' Hard Knocks that actually feels worthy of a Super Bowl champion
Forget whatever I said on Monday about Hard Knocks. The premiere of the Seattle Seahawks on HBO felt as though it was the first day of the season. That football is back…and it’s bigger than ever.
Perhaps because the show is covering a Super Bowl winner this time, it didn’t feel like there was any fluff in the premiere. No line dancing. Maybe that’s coming, but surprisingly the episode stuck very close to football.
At times, probably too close.
For the first time, we heard from Devon Witherspoon what he thinks about his ongoing contract negotiations with the team. He’s not upset necessarily, but he’s not happy. And we heard from John Schneider that Ian Rapoport’s report that Seattle’s “extraordinary effort” to make Witherspoon the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history irked the player, and that the Seahawks would have to reach out to the agent to let him know that they didn’t say that.
Funny because as I wrote at the time, this comes across as the Seahawks trying to tell fans, “We tried and it’s not our fault.”
Now Schneider is letting him and us know that wherever that’s coming from, it’s not him.
From his car, Witherspoon made it clear to us that he believes cornerback is the second-hardest job in the sport and that he feels that makes him one of the most valuable players in the NFL. For what it’s worth, the wallets say otherwise.
The average salary for a cornerback is $4.2 total and $8.1 for a starter, which ranks seventh and sixth overall, respectively. A cornerback has a lower average salary than a guard or a defensive tackle, and Witherspoon, who intentionally used the word “versatile” to describe his best trait, isn’t considered by anyone to be the best outside cornerback in the NFL.
Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to be the highest-paid (many highest-paid players aren’t the best at their positions) but I say merely to emphasize, as I have all offseason, why this extension wasn’t hammered out in a day like it was for Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The Seahawks probably do intend to extend Witherspoon—it’s setting up for a nice episode 3 of Hard Knocks, the moment that Liev Schrieber can narrate the line “…and finally after months of waiting, the Seahawks get their silver Spoon”—but I’ll be frank:
There’s just no way they like the idea of paying a cornerback over $30 million per year if they can’t trust him to cover Puka Nacua and Marvin Harrison and Mike Evans one-on-one, six times this year, plus playoffs. The type of number one cornerback who they had the last time they won a Super Bowl, and fittingly Richard Sherman was on the Hard Knocks podcast this week.
And contract battles weren’t the only fights aired last night.
Cabel-threw
Seahawks players getting in practice fights meant almost nothing to me. I just assume that football players have been hating each other and making up afterwards ever since they were in pee-wee. When Derick Hall put Bryce Cabeldue in a surprise chokehold and threw him to the ground, it felt like he crossed a line … but then again, who cares?
Either they make up or they don’t, but I don’t think offensive and defensive players even necessarily need to like each other to be successful. Maybe the team will be even better for it if they don’t like each other, constantly trying to one-up the other side and get credit for the win.
Or avoid blame for the loss.
However, what was interesting—and potentially not appreciated by Mike Macdonald—was HBO’s decision to air some of his thoughts on the matter after fights, including that not only did Hall cross a line, but so did Brady Russell by implying that Hall has “changed” since he got paid.
It’s all fine, but at the end of the day, a seed has been planted. Some fans will now think that Hall’s personality is different this year (not really sure what his personality was before this year, to be honest) and if he has a quiet game or a month with no sacks, they’ll say, “It’s because he got paid. You heard it from his teammates.”
Russell apologized for the comment and made it clear it was something said in the heat of the moment. Macdonald handled it appropriately, and he’s aware that he’s mic’d up so he can’t say that his conversation with Aden Durde was ever expected to be “private”, but it still felt like a scene you never get from the NFL.
Actual, real, transparent negative emotions that happen in practices or locker rooms behind the scenes.
You get plenty of positive anecdotes from players and coaches, most of them probably exaggerated, but here was something that it felt like we weren’t supposed to see.
Now I’m not just watching Hard Knocks because it’s the Seahawks. I’m watching because it’s interesting.
Okay, I’m biased. I’m overly invested because the Seahawks. But the episode was actually doubly-good and has me more excited for episode two than I thought I would be.
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