RENTON — Richard Sherman was splayed out on the turf, flat on his back, twitching like a dying bug.
During practice.
No, the three-time All-Pro didn’t get hit. Jermaine Kearse and Doug Baldwin were just trying to make it look like he did.
The three Seahawks spent a couple moments of the team’s final training camp practice with fans in attendance clowning through a WWE wrestling skit. Reserves scrimmaged on the field a few yards behind them. More hip-hop blared from the DJ the team employs to mix tracks from the lakeside corner of the field.
Sherman played the part of the dude getting “slammed.” Kearse pantomimed runs into the ropes and bouncing back to Sherman for an “Atomic Drop.” Baldwin pretended to drop elbows and jump from a make-believe top rope.
Just another routine afternoon at a Seahawks practice.
There are 3 1/2 weeks until their season opener, and the Seahawks are relishing a vibe even its core creator, Pete Carroll, acknowledges is different.
No holdouts. More dedicated. More together. More energetic. More fun.
“This is as good as it gets,” Sherman said of his sixth Seattle preseason.
“Just enjoying being out here. It’s a blessing to be out here in a team like ours, an environment, an organization that appreciates its players, that gives them the freedom that lets them dance and do WWE moves at practice — but we still go out there and do our jobs. And that’s what football is about.
“You go to some places and it’s militant. It’s straight by the book. There’s no music. There’s no anything. Just do your job for three hours and get off the field.
“Here, you’re playing with your family — my son gets to see me play. There’s nothing better.”
Asked if he believes that environment is why Seattle has played in two of the past three Super Bowls and is a favorite to make it three out of four this season, Sherman nodded.
“One hundred percent,” he said.
“I think there’s nothing more powerful than playing with passion and joy.”
Even in exhibition games. Immediately after Trevone Boykin’s last-play touchdown heave to Tanner McEvoy and Troymaine Pope’s two-point conversion run for the 17-16 win at Kansas City on Saturday, Sherman and Seattle’s veterans wildly sprinted onto the Arrowhead Stadium field. They jumped around with their helmets off.
Sherman saw it as another example of this team being more together than last season’s.
“Just guys in the meetings, just day-to-day,” he said.
“Just the appreciation of a guy making a catch and everybody celebrating with him. Appreciation of a guy making a great stop, a great tackle, and everybody enjoys it.
“I mean we just won a preseason game and if you didn’t know any better you would have thought that was the NFC Championship or something, you know?”
Part of the reason this preseason is “as good as it gets” for Seahawks veterans: They are not coming off the crushing emotions of a first Super Bowl win, then a last-second Super Bowl loss this summer, as they were the previous two preseasons. Carroll has acknowledged more than once the hangover effect of prepping for and playing a Super Bowl in February lasts into the next season, as it did last year for this team.
Another reason is simple: These guys are allowed to have fun.
Sherman has only played for the Seahawks since he entered the league in 2011. He lacks first-hand reference to how life is in other camps.
Brandon Williams doesn’t. The ex-Oregon Ducks tight end just arrived this offseason after one season with the Miami Dolphins and three with the Carolina Panthers.
“Yeah, it’s a little different,” deadpanned Williams, a candidate to make the team because of his blocking and standout play on special teams.
“It’s definitely more relaxed. Not that it’s easy, but in the way Coach Carroll lets you be yourself. I love it.
“In a lot of organizations, it’s all about business, all the time. No listening to music while you practice. No laughing. Here, we’re playing basketball before meetings. There’s always something fun happening — while you know you still have to get your work done right.”
No one gets his work done more right than Earl Thomas. Like Sherman, Seattle’s free safety is a three-time All-Pro. Unlike Sherman, you won’t find Thomas sprawled out in a WWE skit during practice.
His ferocity is legendary in Seattle’s locker room.
In November 2014, the Seahawks were an unsteady 6-4. During a routine pregame walkthrough, Thomas berated defensive line teammates for passing around sunflower seeds. Thomas saw a lack of focus. The huge linemen saw Thomas as out of line. That sparked an argument on the field — then a détente and new unity.
A few days later the Seahawks gave first-place Arizona its second loss in 11 games. It was the first of eight consecutive victories. Seattle soared past the Cardinals to another NFC West title and into its second consecutive Super Bowl.
“It would be impressive to see Earl Thomas practice at the intensity he does every day if I did not know Earl Thomas was Earl Thomas,” Sherman said.
He has started next to Thomas in Seattle secondary for 108 consecutive games.
“Earl Thomas is kind of like either the Dos Equis guy or Chuck Norris. He’s a guy who is exactly who people think he is, and better than the people who think he’s the best. He’s better than the people who have the highest praise for him — he’s better than that.”
During the team scrimmage, Thomas moved strong safety Kelcie McCray (playing with the starters while Kam Chancellor is out with a groin injury) over just before the snap to the exact place the ensuing play went.
“People don’t get to see him work on a daily basis. They don’t get to see how hard he goes, how hard he practices even when the practice doesn’t matter,” Sherman said.
“In walkthroughs he doesn’t let people catch the ball, he doesn’t let people execute their plays. When we’re supposed to let the offense catch it … he just doesn’t live his life that way.
“The only person who can beat Earl Thomas is Earl B. Thomas III. Or maybe the second; his dad might get him.”
Sherman says Thomas even watches practices with supreme intensity.
“Nobody watches practice harder,” Sherman said.
“Practice watches Earl Thomas, Earl Thomas doesn’t watch practice.”
Yet Sherman also claims Thomas has a lighter side, one that would have fit in the WWE skit.
“He has a ton of lighter moments, but I’m not going to allow you to see them because he doesn’t allow you to see them,” Sherman said.
“So I have nothing to say about those.”
Richard Sherman with nothing to say about something?
That’s way more unusual for these Seahawks than a pro-wrestling skit among three Pro Bowl stars in the middle of practice.
