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Training Camp
Kupp Went One-Handed on Day 2 and Nobody in the Building Blinked
The best play of the weekend happened Sunday afternoon in shorts. Running down the left sideline, Cooper Kupp laid out for a Sam Darnold pass and pulled it in with one hand, hauling the ball down just before he slid out of bounds. Second practice of camp. No pads, no contact, nothing on the line except a sold-out crowd that got its money’s worth twice in two days.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who is not exactly starved for highlights of his own, spent his media time narrating someone else’s. “Great concentration with the left hand diving,” he said. “You don’t see that often.” When the guy who just rewrote the franchise receiving record is the one describing your catch in detail, you are having a fine July.
Kupp is heading into his tenth NFL season. He got here last year, immediately became a playmaker and a voice in the room, and won a Super Bowl. The Yakima kid did not come home to be a mentor with a locker. He came home to catch footballs sideways.
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Kupp is entering his 10th NFL season, and his second in Seattle.
What this actually matters for: Brian Fleury’s offense is expected to lean on motion and tight ends, Tory Horton is back on the field, and the receiver room has four settled chairs and a real fight behind them. A veteran making a circus catch in a seven-on-seven period on a Sunday doesn’t change a depth chart. It does tell you the second-best receiver on this team is still operating at full temperature five months after a parade.
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Roster
The Third-String Guard Has Appointed Himself Camp Hype Man
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Stephens was the fifth-round pick out of Iowa at No. 148, brought in to push Anthony Bradford at right guard. On Day 1 he took his reps with the third team, which is roughly where a Day 3 lineman is supposed to start and nowhere near where he plans to finish.
You can be cynical about a rookie working the crowd with HBO in the building. I’d rather note that offensive linemen who volunteer to be the loudest person at a July practice usually turn out to be the ones the veterans actually like. The chants are free. The right guard job is not.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Dante Fowler Jr. is on the field. After sitting out Saturday for precautionary reasons, the veteran edge rusher practiced Sunday with the second-team defense. A 31-year-old pass rusher easing in during the no-pads week is exactly the correct amount of caution. Field Gulls
Mike Macdonald got asked whether Nick Emmanwori will be ready for the opener against New England and answered with a grin: “Could he play in the opener? Sure. He could play in the opener.” That is a coach enjoying himself far too much for a man discussing ankle surgery. FOX 13 Seattle
With Emmanwori on PUP, safety D’Anthony Bell got ample first-team work on Day 1, and Julian Love turned in the play of the practice. Bell was a practice squad add in January. Now he’s taking reps next to the best safety on the roster. MyNorthwest
Tory Horton is back but he isn’t being turned loose. He worked mostly off to the side during Sunday’s team periods after getting reps Saturday, though he fielded plenty of punts early. Managing a shin, one practice at a time. Boring is the goal here. The Spokesman-Review
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The Super Bowl favorites held their first practice at Loyola Marymount on Sunday and their quarterback watched it. Matthew Stafford, healthy after the back injury that wrecked last summer, was given a scheduled day off as McVay manages him through the opening practice block, which handed the first-team huddle to Stetson Bennett. Los Angeles spent an offseason importing everything it could think of and Day 1 still opened with a workload plan for a 38-year-old.
NINERS
San Francisco got through exactly one padless practice before the offensive line coughed up another body. Veteran tackle Vederian Lowe left Sunday’s session with an injury and did not return, with rookie Enrique Cruz Jr. taking his reps the rest of the way. No contact, no pads, no hitting of any kind, and they still need the backup plan on the first afternoon. That building has a genre and it isn’t football.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This linebacker was Seattle’s seventh-round pick out of USC in 2011, at No. 242 overall, and three years later returned a Peyton Manning interception for a touchdown on his way to Super Bowl XLVIII MVP honors. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Malcolm Smith. He spent most of his first two seasons as a special teams player before starting eight games in 2013, then finished the 43-8 win over Denver with 10 tackles, a fumble recovery and the pick-six.
THE GOLDEN EGG
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The Golden Egg goes to the stretch of camp where nothing can go wrong, because the league won’t allow it. No pads. No contact. Five days of football at 80 percent, which is exactly the speed at which every roster in the NFL looks flawless.
Right now the right guard job is wide open and nobody has lost it. The backup quarterback competition is undefeated on both sides. Every receiver catches everything, every rusher would have gotten there, and Cooper Kupp is the best player alive. Nobody has been carted anywhere. Nobody has been cut. The depth chart is a rumor.
It ends soon, and then we find out which of these guys can actually hold up when someone is permitted to hit them. Until then, enjoy the only week of the year where this team is perfect and the sun is out in Renton.
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Days Without Pads
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Contact Permitted
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Sold-Out Practices
Got a Question? Yell It Into the Void.
The mailbag is open and the standards are low. Roster math, cap gripes, arguments you lost at a barbecue, theories about who the third cornerback should be. Send it in and I’ll answer it with more confidence than the situation warrants.
Pads go on soon. Enjoy the week where everybody is still perfect. — The Rooster