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Camp
The Backfield Got Very Thin, Very Fast
Jadarian Price was not on the field Friday. A team spokesperson said it was lower-body soreness, and head coach Mike Macdonald was not scheduled to talk afterward, so that is the entire official record. The first-round pick out of Notre Dame had been on the field for every other full workout of camp.
Here is who was left. George Holani. Emanuel Wilson. Velus Jones Jr. And T.J. Harden, an undrafted rookie out of SMU who signed on Wednesday and who, before all this, was a UCLA teammate of Zach Charbonnet and Jake Bobo. Charbonnet is still on PUP. Jacardia Wright is sidelined. Holani and Wilson took most of the work with the starters.
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Running backs on the field for Seattle’s 12th practice of camp. One of them had been employed for 48 hours.
Price is almost certainly fine. Soreness in the second week of August is a category of news that exists mostly to make people like me type quickly. But the room behind him has quietly gone from comfortable to bare, and Seattle already had to go sign a second fullback this week because Robbie Ouzts is hurt. That is two position groups being held together with paperwork.
The genuinely good part: the run game had its best day of camp without its best back. Holani bounced one outside behind an Eric Saubert block and turned the corner. Wilson went straight through a hole the interior line opened on the next snap. Brian Fleury spent Tuesday saying the running game needed to be better, so Friday’s answer arrived roughly 72 hours later, delivered by two guys nobody drafted in the first round.
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Seattle spent all offseason telling us the backfield was three deep. On Friday it was four guys, and one of them had been employed for 48 hours.
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Practice
They Piped In Fake Crowd Noise and Darnold Threw Two Picks
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DeMarcus Lawrence took this personally in the best way, waving his arms up and down between plays to get the actual humans on the berm to add to the artificial racket. A veteran edge rusher conducting a crowd against his own offense at a Friday morning practice is exactly the correct use of a 12-year career.
Sam Darnold, who has been close to mistake-free all camp, threw two interceptions on the same day the noise came on. Drake Thomas jumped a throw meant for Holani over the middle. The other was a deep sideline ball toward Cody White that Nehemiah Pritchett got to first, the kind of throw the Seattle Times noted he probably takes back in a real game. Two picks in eleven-on-eleven in August is not a crisis. It is just the first blemish on a camp that has otherwise been immaculate, and it happened the day somebody hit the volume knob.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Practice moves downtown tonight. The Seahawks hold Football Fest at Lumen Field, with meet-and-greets and autographs from Seahawks Legends on the schedule. Fifteen dollars gets you into the building where the banner is going up in September. That is the single best value in this city right now and it is not close. Seahawks.com
AJ Barner caught a play-action pass Friday, got loose, and turned it into a long touchdown, one of several intermediate and deep gains he pulled in from Darnold. Fleury came from a tight-end-heavy building in San Francisco. He appears to have brought the recipe with him in a lunchbox. Seahawks.com
Jalen Milroe is no longer throwing exclusively to guys who won’t be here in September. Field Gulls watched Wednesday’s practice and noted he’s getting reps with Elijah Arroyo and Jadarian Price. Still QB3. But the third-string offense is no longer a witness protection program. Field Gulls
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Los Angeles wrapped training camp Friday at Loyola Marymount. Ten open practices, done, see you in the preseason. The takeaways from the final day were that Blake Corum looked agile and Emmanuel Forbes Jr. broke up a couple of passes. The betting favorite to win the whole thing closed the summer on a good day for a backup runner and a cornerback. Meanwhile Seattle is on practice number 12 and busing the entire operation to Lumen Field tonight.
NINERS
By the end of Wednesday’s practice San Francisco was without 20 players off its 90-man roster, with George Kittle, Mykel Williams and Isaac Guerendo still yet to practice at all this summer and five more already on injured reserve. Reporters asked whether next week’s joint sessions with Tennessee might get scrapped. Acting head coach Chris Foerster’s read on the situation: “It seems like we’re very healthy.” Somebody get that man a roster sheet and a quiet room.
CARDINALS
Arizona used the third overall pick on a running back, which is the loudest possible way to announce a plan. Then they released their first depth chart of the year and listed Jeremiyah Love second, behind Tyler Allgeier. Teams do this all the time with rookies, sure. It still reads like buying a sports car and driving the loaner.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This former Minnesota assistant became the first head coach in Seahawks history in 1976, went 2-12 in year one, and two seasons later was named NFL Coach of the Year after a 9-7 finish. Who is he?
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Jack Patera. He gave Seattle its first two winning seasons and a reputation for trick plays, then was fired two games into the strike-shortened 1982 season and finished 35-59 with the franchise.
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Gates open at 4:15 downtown. I'll be the one in the upper deck counting running backs. — The Rooster