The Seattle Seahawks left Seattle Wednesday night 8 p.m. PT and arrived 1:30p.m. BST on Thursday and proceeded to their first work out on British soil three hours later. After the practice, Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll met with the media after the teams practice and addressed the travel, Doug Baldwin’s role in the offense and the team’s offseason overhaul.
(On how London is)
“I have no idea. I’ve been nowhere near it. Being here has been great. Here at The Grove has been fantastic. The players are really taking to it and they’re having fun. Looking forward to a ballgame.”
(On the time zone change)
“Seems like we’re doing alright. The way everybody’s operating, we’re doing fine. I think a lot of guys woke up in the middle of the night but it seemed like they managed it okay.”
(On Doug Baldwin’s role in the offense)
“He’s got a crucial role in it. Because the ball didn’t get to him last week has nothing to do with anything. That’s not part of any evaluation at all in our side of it. Sometimes, that happens. We only completed thirteen passes last week in a real productive offensive day. Doug will be right in the middle of all of it. He’s one of our very best players and he’s been a great performer for a long time and there’s nothing to change that thought at all.”
(On the importance of the offseason changes)
“First off, it was really important to me in making the change that we would get a relationship between the quarterback and the playcaller and I thought that would be necessary just to carry our communication and Russell (Wilson)’s growth further down the line.
Brian (Schottenheimer) has done a fantastic job of making sense of him from the word ‘Go’ and they communicate on a really high level and I think Russell has commanded much more of the offense than he has in the past in terms of line calls and communication and all of that – run game and pass game – so that’s been an obvious connection for us that I think is going to pay off for us. Getting Ken Norton back is hugely important. I coached Ken years ago in San Francisco and then had him on our staff at the University of Southern California. I have always loved his spirit and love for the game and how he connects with players around him.
When he was a player and he did it, I asked him to never change and be that same spirit that he always was when he came into coaching, which he’s done. To have him back on our staff and just part of the program, part of the fabric and the culture of what we’re all about is really important to me. There’s nobody that’s been more successful. There’s nobody that’s ever played tougher.
There’s nobody that ever competed at a higher level than Kenny did, but he also embodies this thought that he wants to share all of those experiences with the young guys that he works with, more importantly to him than anything else he does in his work and I’ve just always loved that about him. It’s great to have him back and I feel very much at home, very comfortable with him on our side.”
(On Sunday’s weather forecast affecting game conditions)
“Well, what we’ve been told – and we’ll be on the turf tomorrow for the first time – that this is the same makeup, same construction of turf, the synthetic aspect of this as well. I think, from what we understand, Wembley (Stadium’s turf) is more worn so we’ll have to figure out what that means but we’ve been working with our footwear here in preparation to make sure that we can adapt quickly when we get on that field.”
(On the diehard contingent of UK Seahawks fans)
“Yeah. We heard about that coming over and I’ve known about it back home. I would think that those that were at the airport waiting for us getting in going through customs were local people and just representing with a great flare, just like we’re used to at home. I understand there’s a great number of them.
We should have a large constituent of Seahawks fans and 12s and like we said yesterday, we were made aware of the German group that’s coming in here too and they’re all fired up about it – like 300 of them or something like that going to be wearing the colors and all. There seems to be a real flare in the spirit about it so we’re kind of used to that at home and excited that it’s traveling with us.”
