RENTON — On the week Earl Thomas became a semifinalist for enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his former Seahawks are trying to replicate the ways his original “Legion of Boom” practiced.
And thought.
Jarran Reed is the only member of this year’s Seattle defense who was on it eight years ago when Thomas, Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor were playing for the Seahawks. Reed’s rookie season was 2016. The Seahawks were a year and a half removed from back-to-back Super Bowls. They had their famed “Legion of Boom” secondary. They had outspoken, All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner, Pro Bowl partner Bobby Wagner, supreme defensive linemen Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, Tony McDaniel and Ahtyba Rubin on the end of their run as the NFL’s best defense.
Their practices were street fights. A pass completion by Russell Wilson against them sparked shouting and sometimes pushing, and slapping, matches. Getting blocked in a drill was grounds for ridicule, banishment. Film sessions were trash-talking free-for-alls.
“When I got here, the way the guys practiced was at an elite level,” Reed said Thursday.
“The way they attacked the day…receivers and DBs were always chompin’ at each other. And it was always so physical.
“Down in the front, it was a dog house.”
How wild were those practices? In September of Reed’s rookie year of 2016, the NFL fined the Seahawks $400,000, fined coach Pete Carroll $200,000 and took away a fifth-round draft choice because the league reviewed film of Seattle’s practices and found them too physical.
They were no-pads, offseason OTA practices. In June.
Games? Some of those back then felt like days off compared to Seahawks practices.
Reed was then a rookie defensive tackle and second-round pick from Alabama. He was a star at one of college football’s elite and most successful programs.
Yet he says now “I had to up my game” when he practiced with those Seahawks.
That’s exactly his idea now.
Practice with an ‘LOB’ mentality
Did he think Thomas, Chancellor, Sherman, Rubin, Bennett, Avril, McDaniel and friends were crazy when he got to Seattle eight years ago?
Reed chuckled.
“You know what I mean, you gotta be some kind of way to play this game, right?” he said.
Reed, who turns 32 next month, played his first five NFL seasons for Seattle. He left in a contract dispute and got released in the spring of 2021. He played for Kansas City then Green Bay, for one season each. He returned to the Seahawks before the 2023 season.
He and 10th-year wide receiver Tyler Lockett are the only two current Seahawks who know how the “Legion of Boom” defense and team practiced in Seattle.
After Buffalo beat the Seahawks at home for Seattle’s fourth loss in five games late last month, Reed spoke up. He told teammate and Pro Bowl safety Julian Love, who in 2016 was a freshman at Notre Dame, that he, Reed, wanted to change the standard to which these Seahawks practice.
To more of a “Legion of Boom”-like mentality.
“I was explaining to J-Love, I had to up my game. Practice was harder than the game,” Reed said. “That’s what I was explaining to J-Love, that we had to take that approach as a team, and we have to start implementing those types of things in our practice.”
Love was all for it.
He was a great guy for Reed to share his idea. Love has talked all season that Seattle’s talented defense has yet to discover who it really is, and how it plays best, under rookie head coach Mike Macdonald and his new defensive system.
“A few leaders were talking and saying, ‘OK, what do we want to be?…It won’t just happen. We have to create an identity,” Love said Thursday.
“It was brought up about the ‘LOB’ days, how they went about practice and how the defense took a lot of things personally, and were challenged, and obviously…an attack mentality.
“Some of them wanted to incorporate that into how we led.
“I think some of that stuff has made (us take a) step forward. It’s ‘Hey, man. This isn’t good enough,’ and hold us to a higher standard to who we want to be.”
Since Reed spoke up, Love said second-year Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon has bought all in to the new mentality.
That figures. The brash, finger-wagging Witherspoon is the most Legion of Boom-like player these Seahawks have, in talent and swagger.
The goal now, Love says, is for the secondary to not allow Geno Smith to complete a single pass in practices. If he does, the defensive back who gave it up gets hell.
“It’s very simple, but if you are in a man situation, challenge,” Love said. “You should take it personal if someone catches a ball on you in practice.
“It’s that mindset. It helps you be sharper, knowing that the room is going to get on you if you give up a catch or don’t finish a play. That’s the same mindset for the standard.”
Like this uneven season, this mentality change is a work in progress.
“We implemented it. It took more of the leaders, more of the guys in each (position-group) room to uphold that standard, and say what was good and what isn’t good,” Love said. “It was a collective effort, for sure.
“And we’re still trying to get there. We’re still trying to get everybody on board and have that mentality each week.”
The results so far: Better
The Seahawks lost the next game after Reed spoke up, after practice became more competitive. The defense improved. It kept the team in that game Nov. 3 at home against the Rams. They held Los Angeles to 13 points into the fourth quarter. Then Smith threw two interceptions inside L.A.’s 10-yard line, one of which the Rams returned 103 yards for the go-ahead touchdown. The Seahawks lost in overtime.
But Reed’s “LOB”-like standard of practicing is starting to take some hold. Following the team’s bye, the Seahawks went to Santa Clara, California, last weekend and stunned the 49ers. Seattle rallied to win 20-17 while holding down All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey. The Seahawks ended a six-game losing streak to the Niners.
That win — and the Reed way they now practice? — has turned around the season. The Seahawks have gone from last place in the division last week to playing Sunday for the NFC West lead against the Arizona Cardinals (6-4) at Lumen Field.
“Jarran Reed had that approach in mind, that we want to have a dog mindset,” Love said. “And we’re not the ‘LOB,’ by any means. We’re not them. And they’re not us. But it’s similar stylistic things that we want to incorporate.”
Reed said he decided he needed to speak up and change the mentality of his team’s practices because he’s felt the 5-5 Seahawks’ talent hasn’t matched their results.
“I just think we have a special team, especially a special defense. And you can’t let time go to waste,” he said, “especially with the group of guys we’ve got. You never know how things are going to end, who’s going to be here and who’s not.
“So I just wanted to take full advantage of what we have in front of us right now.”
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