KIRKLAND – When Mike Green joined the Seattle Seahawks by way of a trade with Chicago in the spring of 2006, the opportunities were plentiful.
Starting free safety Ken Hamlin had missed most of the previous season because of serious head injuries that had left his NFL future in question. Starting strong safety Michael Boulware was on thin ice, having allowed too many deep touchdowns in 2005. And other than Green, no other safeties with starting experience were on the roster.
While Green was making a serious push for the starting job last August, a foot injury ended his season.
Now Green is back on the practice field, but without quite the prospects of making the starting lineup.
Deon Grant and Brian Russell were added in free agency last March, and both players look like probable starters. Boulware is also back after losing his starting job. And Jordan Babineaux is due to return soon from an injury after moving from cornerback to safety last season.
“There’s a lot of competition,” Green said from training camp this week. “We’ve got two good safeties already starting, and then me, Mike Boulware and Jordan Babineaux are going to push them. And that will make everybody better.”
When it comes to depth, Seattle’s safety position is the Caribbean Sea. The five top safeties at camp have a combined 243 NFL starts between them. Grant (96) and Russell (62) lead the list, but Green (45) and Boulware (28) have plenty of experience as starters as well.
“The experience is really something,” defensive coordinator John Marshall said.
With Hamlin now in Dallas, and Boulware falling out of favor last season after a couple more long touchdown plays, the Seahawks are likely to start a new pair of safeties in the secondary. Grant and Russell formed an immediate bond after signing with the team, impressing the coaching staff and their new Seattle teammates from the very first minicamp practice.
“I was surprised,” Green said of how quickly Grant and Russell took hold of the starting spots. “Those guys got out there, did a lot of good stuff early in minicamps, and it continued on.
“Those guys are veteran guys and they understand the game. They’ve been doing a good job.”
So what does that mean for the other safeties? They’ve got to get healthy and show improvement to get back into the mix.
“Last year was definitely very frustrating for me,” said Boulware, who missed all the summer minicamps while recovering from shoulder and hip injuries. “But it was a great learning experience. It’s one of those things you have to go through to mature and become the player I want to be.”
Many of Boulware’s most memorable plays came while playing a nickel back position that is somewhere between safety and linebacker – his position at Florida State – and so he could thrive in the role of No. 3 safety. Babineaux, who is expected to miss about three weeks with a bruised knee, can also play in nickel and dime situations because he has seen time at both cornerback and safety.
Add in Green, who was a full-time starter for three years with the Bears, and the Seahawks have plenty of experienced options at the safety position.
“It’s amazing,” Russell said of the team’s depth. “If a guy gets hurt, there’s not going to be much of a dropoff in the level of production. These guys have been there, and they’ve played in big games.
“And that’s important, because in a 16-game season in a physical game like football, injuries happen.”
Barring injuries, the starting spots will likely go to the newcomers. Russell and Grant have come in and taken hold of the job, leaving the other safeties to wait for scraps of playing time.
“It’s a good fit,” Russell said of his kinship with Grant. “I’ve known Deon for a little while because we share the same agent (Mitch Frankel). … There was some semblance of a relationship, so when we got together we hit the ground running.”
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