Seahawks to sign ex-Green Beret Boyer, long snapper from Texas

NFL Network reported minutes after the three-day draft ended with the 256th and final pick the Seattle Seahawks are signing long-snapper Nate Boyer, an ex-Army Green Beret, to a contract and tryout as an undrafted free agent. Boyer confirmed it on live television minutes after that.

The team has a rookie minicamp in Renton beginning Thursday. And the 34-year-old veteran of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan in an elite Army Special Forces unit will be here at Seahawks headquarters for it.

“I appreciate America! I appreciate everybody!” a beaming, booming Boyer said live on NFL Network this afternoon.

Asked what he will say to his new Seahawks teammates when he talks to them for the first time, the Texas Longhorns walk-on who had never played a competitive down of football until he arrived at Austin out the Army said: “I want to earn their respect…honestly, I’m nobody special.”

Yeah, right.

Boyer’s remarkable story is here. It comes a day after the team divided some of its rabid fan base by drafting in the second round Frank Clark, a defensive end kicked out of the Michigan program after an arrest and jailing on charges of assault and domestic violence..

Seattle re-signed free agent long snapper Clint Gresham in the offseason. But he now has some worthy competition, worthy in more ways than one.

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