Pete Carroll talks Leroy Hill, Walter Jones, Brandon Marshall and the first day of minicamp
Published 4:31 pm Tuesday, April 13, 2010
There was no shortage of stuff to talk about for new Seahawks coach Pete Carroll after his team finished its first day of minicamp.
Before practice started, the team announced that DE Patrick Kerney was retiring, and one can’t help but wonder if left tackle Walter Jones is next. Carroll said he isn’t sure of Jones’ plans at this point, but indicated Jones is leaning towards calling it quits.
“I don’t want to make many comments, because I haven’t talked to Walter in a while now,” he said. “But the last time I did, he was really considering that he’s going to retire, but hadn’t made the final decision enough to come to you guys and make an announcement like Patrick did today. So we’ll just have to wait and see on that one. He’s been a great Seahawks over the years and we support whatever he’s going to do. We’ll find when the time comes.”
Jones wasn’t the only player absent today, as linebacker Leroy Hill stayed away after being arrested Saturday night for domestic violence.
Carroll didn’t say much on that topic, but did say he and GM John Schneider told Hill to stay away from this week’s minicamp.
“There’s really nothing we can say right now,” Carroll said. “There is some time that has to take place for him to get it figured out and all. He didn’t need to be with us here in this practice mode. He’s got some work to do and some stuff to deal with. I don’t really have any comment other than that. We’ll just have to wait and see when the information comes in.
“John and I both said we though it would be best for him to take care of his business and get everything worked out, so we made that decision for him.”
Carroll was also asked about Broncos receiver Brandon Marshall, who signed his tender with Denver today, the next step necessary for a trade to happen.
“There is really nothing to report there,” Carroll said. “Nothing much has happened. We’ve done our homework and our research on him and it’s really kind of not in our hands right now. The Broncos have things to do and they’ve got to figure out what they’re doing on their end of it before anything can happen. So we’re just kind of waiting and seeing. We’re on alert and watching. It’s an interesting situation, so we’ll just have to wait it out.”
As for the day’s practice, which took place under sunny skies here in Renton, Carroll seemed pretty pleased with Day 1.
“What we saw was a really nice practice today,” he said. “Guys were humming around, we got a lot of work done, and guys feel good about the preparation to get to this point.”
A few notes from the practice:
Not that we can take a lot from this considering the roster is a long ways from complete, but the starting line in practice was, from left to right, Ray Willis, Mike Gibson, Chris Spencer, Max Unger and Sean Locklear. It’s interesting that Spencer was back at center with Unger at guard, but again, let’s not get too carried away reading too much into things. Also, I would doubt we’ll see Willis play left tackle in games, as he doesn’t have the mobility desired for that position. If anything, this could be a sign that they want to stick with Locklear on the right and they’re just plugging Willis in this week until they draft a left tackle.
Defensive end Lawrence Jackson and tackle Willis, who got in the first fight of training camp last season, had the first (and second) scuffles of this minicamp.
