PHOENIX — Before the Seattle Seahawks took off for Phoenix and Super Bowl XLIX, Tom Cable made himself a promise.
He was going to enjoy the Super Bowl experience this time around.
The Seahawks’ offensive line coach and assistant head coach obviously enjoyed the outcome of last year’s game, a 43-8 victory, but he was too worried about the big game to really appreciate that he was part of a team that had reached the pinnacle of the sport.
“I promised myself getting on the plane the other day that I was going to come down here and have fun,” Cable said. “Last year I had fun because the game turned out fun, but I don’t know how much I enjoyed it from the minute we got to New York until it was over. I wanted to do that this year, I wanted to enjoy it and take it all in, and it’s been a blast.”
Cable, a 1982 graduate of Snohomish High School, is having as much fun coaching this season as he ever has, which is perhaps why it has been easier to remember to have fun even on football’s biggest stage. In a year in which the Seahawks had four different centers start at least three games — and it’s hard to overstate how important that position is to the offensive line’s ability to function — the Seahawks set a franchise record by rushing for 2,762 yards, the highest total in the NFL since Atlanta, with Cable as its line coach, had 2,939 in 2006.
While left tackle Russell Okung and left guard James Carpenter missed some time, and center was a revolving door, the right side of the line, the “stable” side, was manned by a defensive tackle Cable turned into a guard at the NFL level, J.R. Sweezy, and a rookie right tackle, Justin Britt, who had his struggles, but improved as the year went on.
“Yeah (it has been a challenging year), but it was also one of the most fun, too,” Cable said. “I really enjoyed what they accomplished, because it’s hard to do that, period, if you’re healthy, and to do it the way we had to with all the changes, yeah, it’s very pleasing.”
Cable doesn’t like taking credit for Seattle’s rushing success or for the team’s ability to survive a revolving door at center, but his ability to help build the team’s depth by turning late-round picks and undrafted players — and yes, defensive linemen — into productive NFL linemen has been huge for Seattle this season.
“Tom’s got a great system and he has worked really hard at the communications and verbiage and the principles of the language, (which is) so important, and it is really embedded,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “He is a great teacher and he takes great pride to make sure that group is really coordinating well. He moves guys around a lot over the course of the year to make sure they are well versed on the line, so that when you’re forced to make those decisions, guys are better versed and prepared for it. He does a masterful job.
“It hasn’t been easy — we have a had a lot of changes this year, I don’t know what the numbers are on that — but there’s been a lot of moving parts and he has commanded it really well for us.”
Carroll isn’t the only person to describe Cable as a teacher. He likes to refer to himself that way — the hands-on element of coaching is what he says he missed most during his stint as a head coach in Oakland — and his players see Cable that way too.
“I think that just speaks to his ability to be able to teach,” center Max Unger said of the Seahawks thriving despite so many line injuries. “It’s a specific player that he’s looking for … He takes a lot of pride in teaching us and having the backups able to come in and play and not have a drop off in it.”
Okung, whose tenure in Seattle predates Cable by a year, says, “He’s our leader on offense, especially with the offensive line. I wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t be the player I am without him.”
A big part of what has made Cable’s time in Seattle, and in particular these two Super-Bowl seasons, is that he can share it with those closest to him. It’s a fairly regular occurrence to see Ed Lucero, Cable’s line coach at Snohomish who is still coaching — as a guest at Seahawks practice. Longtime Snohomish head coach and current athletic director Mark Perry was also at a recent practice with Lucero.
“There’s a lot of pride in Snohomish about football, and if you grew up in it, it was a special time there,” Cable said. “Growing up there was pretty cool, and for them to be a part of it is pretty unique.”
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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