PHOENIX — Lawyer Milloy’s greatest on-field accomplishments happened with the New England Patriots.
During his first seven seasons, the former University of Washington standout was a four-time Pro Bowler, a three-time All-Pro and a Super Bowl champion. Yet when Milloy’s first NFL team faces the one he ended his career with, it’s the Seattle Seahawks who are still benefiting from Milloy’s time with the team.
Milloy retired following the 2010 season, coach Pete Carroll’s first in Seattle, but the role he played mentoring Seattle’s young defensive backs — Kam Chancellor in particular — played a big role in the team’s growth.
“I don’t think I can measure how important that was, because it was crucial,” said Carroll, who also coached Milloy for three seasons in New England. “… He stood for all of the really important foundations and fundamentals of this game. He loved to play. He was such a fierce competitor. He was so tough. He wouldn’t back off anything, and that mentality (he) shared with the young guys that we had — with Earl and Kam at the time — it was invaluable. … Kam could have played that year. He could have been playing in (Milloy’s) place but the way it turned out, it probably made him hungrier. … Lawyer was so gracious about demonstrating who he is and what it takes to play in this league. I don’t think we could ever replace that.”
Milloy, who played at Lincoln High School in Tacoma before going on to an All-America career at Washington, nearly called it a career before Carroll, Chancellor and Thomas arrived in Seattle in 2010. Playing under coach Jim Mora in 2009, Milloy was relegated to a special-teams role and didn’t want to come back for another rebuilding season if he wasn’t going to get a chance to earn a starting job. When Carroll called and made it clear the new regime valued the leadership Milloy could bring — and would give him a fair chance to compete — Milloy was sold.
“At the end of (2009), obviously we didn’t have the season we wanted to have (Seattle was 5-11), and Jim was gone, but I wasn’t worried about who was coming next, I was worried if it was time to hang it up,” said Milloy, who was part of a regime change in New England when Bill Belichick replaced Carroll. “… If I’m going to go out, I want to go out competing for a chance to play. (Carroll) made me feel like he needed me. I understood without too much dialogue from being part of the process with Belichick in New England that you need some older guys in the locker room to be an instrument of the coach.”
While Chancellor, Seattle’s current defensive captain, calls Milloy a “big part of showing me how to be a leader,” Milloy is hesitant to take credit for what Chancellor and Thomas have become. Instead, he sees it as part of the NFL’s circle of life, so to speak. When he was young, veterans helped him, and then eventually, he helped the young players who took over for him. Someday, Milloy said, Chancellor and Thomas will be the ones asked to help develop their eventual successors.
But while Milloy won’t take credit for turning Chancellor into a Pro Bowl strong safety, he does take pride when he sees Chancellor make a big play on game day.
“He was really in-tuned, following everything I did,” Milloy said. “He was studying me without us having to have too many conversations. I could just tell he was very hungry, very determined to learn more about football. The physical attributes were obviously already there, but I think watching an old guy like myself, how I studied, how my preparation slowed the game down, those were the things he asked me about. How do I study? How do I take care of my body at that age? He was a special kid.”
In fact, it was the way rookies Thomas and Chancellor developed during that 2010 season that helped Milloy decide to call it quits. He had pondered retirement before, but every time he felt he was still better, even in his late 30s, than the other safeties on his team. But after watching Thomas and Chancellor in 2010, Milloy knew it was time.
“There was a time one day where I just needed a couple reps off, and Kam went in and all you heard was pads popping, it was excitement,” Milloy said. “I saw him communicating, getting people lined up. That’s when I knew he was going to be good. I was like, ‘OK, this guy gets it.’ It was a special thing to see.
“When I left, I felt good that I could pass the torch to guys who I thought at the time had the potential to be the best in the league. It’s fun to watch, it really is. We’ve got the two best safeties in the league — the best strong safety and the best free safety — that just doesn’t happen.”
Oh, and as for the million-dollar question, Milloy won’t say which of his former teams he is rooting for this weekend — “I’m going to play the politically correct card,” he says — but even if this is a tough decision for him, it’s the “only game I wanted to see all year. I have a tremendous amount of respect for both teams, both organizations and both cities. Boston is like my second home.”
The Puget Sound region, however, has been Milloy’s home for most of his life, and by closing out his career at home, he helped develop some of the key players who would eventually turn the Seahawks into champions.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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