ESPN pulled back the curtain on the Seattle Seahawks locker room in a feature story by Seth Wickersham last week. That rare peak behind the green door revealed a workplace fraught with tension, in-fighting and told the story of a contentious cornerback, Richard Sherman, whose competitive fire ignited some of those brushfires and almost got him traded.
Maybe the tension in the Seahawks locker room isn’t that unusual after all
Tension inside the locker room is really pretty common.
Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports
But maybe there’s something missing there.
On this week’s Onside Kick Family Hour podcast, retired NFL defensive end Stephen White and I spent some time talking about that piece. Stephen made a good point about the dynamics of an NFL locker room. Tension among the defensive players and offensive players isn’t that unusual. Likewise, it’s not unusual for starting quarterbacks to be treated a little differently than the other players on the team.
I’m not going to recap our entire discussion because you really need to hear Stephen talking about it, especially the part about a similar situation from his playing days.
A defense can pitch a shutdown performance, but if the quarterback and the offense fail to put enough points on the board, it’s all for naught. You can imagine why that might leave players on the defensive side of the ball a little upset with the guys on the other side of the locker room. In fact, you could kinda pick that up in the responses from Seahawks players like Michael Bennett and Sherman himself.
None of this is meant to gloss over the chance we had to peer into Seattle’s locker room. It was fascinating. And there might truly be a level of underlying tension that goes beyond what most teams experience. Pete Carroll has a reputation for bringing in teammates who march to the beat of their own drum and keeping the low simmer from becoming a full boil. (I mean, they won a damn Super Bowl with Percy Harvin in the locker room.)
Anyway, you should really give this week’s podcast a listen for more insight into the Seahawks’ situation and life inside of an NFL locker room in general.
You can subscribe here or on iTunes or any other place you get podcasts, which is also a great idea! And don’t forget to leave us a review while you’re there.
See More:
