Pete Carroll on cutting Brandon Browner and Patrick Lewis

Published 12:09 pm Wednesday, August 31, 2016

The Seahawks cut their roster from 90 to 75 players over the course of Monday and Tuesday. The two most prominent names among those cut were veteran defensive back Brandon Browner, an original member of the Legion of Boom who was signed as a free agent during the offseason, and center Patrick Lewis, who ended last season as the starter.

Seattle coach Pete Carroll spoke about the reasoning for both moves. First on Browner, who was trying to make the transition from cornerback to safety:

“We just felt like we ran out of time getting him ready to play safety. The specialty stuff he can do, there was no question about that. But to fit him on the roster I thought it was going to be a race for him to make it. He could play for us, which he did in games, but I think he’s still a little ways to come. I thought in respect to him we’d give him more time to find a place with somebody else. There’s many scenarios where we would ask him to come back, we left with that exchange. I love that guy and his competitiveness and his toughness. It was a big request. We weren’t making him play safety and faking it, we needed him to play and be on the roster and help us. The other guys were just ahead of him.”

When discussing the release of Lewis, Carroll concentrated on how well rookie Joey Hunt has played to win the back-up center job behind Justin Britt:

“Joey’s done a great job. Joey has been really sharp. His understanding of what we want, he comes from a really a wealth of experience and they did a great job with him in terms of identifying defenses, and he translated it into our terminology. He helps guy around him because he’s so bright, plus he’s played really well, so really he created that through the competition.”