KIRKLAND – The optimism that oozes through every NFL training camp was all over Deion Branch’s face. The Seattle Seahawks’ wide receiver stood on the sideline at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, wiped sweat from his brow and talked about his team’s high hopes for the 2007 season.
“Coach (Mike) Holmgren and those guys (in the front office) put together a great team,” Branch told a sideline reporter from NBC Sports last Sunday night. “They weeded out the bad guys. I think that’s where it starts. We don’t have any bad eggs on the team.”
While Branch softened his comments in a Wednesday interview with The Herald [—] “Those guys were all good guys,” he said, referring to the single season he spent with them – his Sunday observations carried some obvious truths.
It’s no coincidence that tight end Jerramy Stevens, safety Ken Hamlin and wide receiver Darrell Jackson left town since the end of the 2006 season. While all three players were productive on the field and brought plenty of charisma to Seattle’s locker room, they also had their share of issues.
Stevens’ transgressions were the most publicized, and a March DUI all but closed the book on his chances of re-signing with Seattle as a free agent. Hamlin also had a pair of DUIs while at the University of Arkansas, and in Oct. 2005 he suffered career-threatening head injuries as the result of a brawl outside of a Pioneer Square night club that has since been shut down.
Jackson wasn’t nearly the off-the-field problem as he was a player of fragile ego. He groused about his contract and openly envied the $39 million deal Branch signed last September. He rarely hurried back from injuries, missing 13 games over the past two seasons. As general manager Tim Ruskell said when the Seahawks traded Jackson to NFC West rival San Francisco in April: “We all know he has not been happy.”
Ruskell has been purging the roster of the so-called “bad eggs” ever since he arrived in Jan. 2005. Linebacker Anthony Simmons, offensive lineman Chris Terry and wide receiver Koren Robinson got shipped out before the memorable 2005 season, while troubled offensive lineman Wayne Hunter was released in the summer of 2006.
“We are living our philosophy,” Ruskell said this week. “We feel good about our locker room right now. We think that’s important to the players, the kind of people that you bring in here.”
Asked if he has finally built the kind of team – character-wise – that he envisioned, Ruskell responded: “You never stop. Some guys are going to get through the cracks; sometimes you misevaluate that way. But I feel good that everybody in this organization is on the same page with that philosophy.”
That’s not to say that the Seahawks’ only moves of the recent offseason were to rid themselves of problem children. Veteran Grant Wistrom was popular with teammates, coaches and the front office, but he was let go due to a large salary and a lack of production. Jovial center Robbie Tobeck got old and retired. Cornerback Kelly Herndon, a team-first guy who did whatever the team asked, and long snapper Jean-Philippe Darche were let go after injuries cut their 2006 seasons short.
But part of the process of moving forward meant cutting ties with those players who often caused distractions.
“One guy can spoil all the greatness. I think you will notice the difference in the past teams I’ve played for,” Branch, a former New England Patriot, said on Wednesday. “One spoiled apple can mess up the whole team.”
Linebacker Julian Peterson was among the current Seahawks who laughed off the notion that there were any locker room distractions last season. Peterson, who spent his first four NFL seasons playing with Terrell Owens in San Francisco, said that the 2006 Seahawks didn’t have any so-called “bad eggs” and that last season was “a cakewalk” compared to what he’s seen in the past.
“I’ve been on San Francisco teams where they had various types of eggs, so to speak,” he said. “I didn’t think Seattle had it that bad.
“I didn’t notice any distractions. I’ve been on a team where the whole topic was T.O. (Owens) every day. So for us to be talking about different things on the team was something new for me.”
With almost three full weeks of training camp behind them, the 2007 Seahawks aren’t so much concerned with their ex-teammates as they are looking forward to the upcoming season.
“I don’t think we had anybody bad last year,” Branch clarified this week. “It’s just that (this season), guys have really started to mesh better.
“When you have a team that’s divided, those are the teams that exit the playoffs early.”
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