Seahawks’ Weaver still proving himself

KIRKLAND — Even a starting job doesn’t exempt a guy from Mike Holmgren’s wrath.

So when fullback Leonard Weaver, a talented gospel singer, broke into a hymn during Thursday’s morning practice, the Seattle Seahawks’ head coach urged him to pipe down.

“I go to church, and I love to hear hymns,” Holmgren told reporters shortly after the light-hearted talk with Weaver. “But out here, I’m in a bad mood, and I don’t want to be in a good mood. Don’t sing hymns.”

In his first training camp as the Seahawks’ starting fullback, Weaver is getting no breaks. Sometimes he still feels like the undrafted rookie who made the roster in 2005.

“I don’t think that’s ever going to disappear,” he said. “Even as a starter, you always come in with the mindset that somebody’s trying to take your position. So you have to be on your P’s and Q’s. Nothing’s ever set in stone. You have to continue to fight for your position.”

Weaver’s latest fight started months ago, when he started a new training program designed to prolong his career. Former teammate and longtime fullback Mack Strong reminded Weaver about the importance of longevity, and Weaver set out to get in the best shape of his life.

With the help of Bally’s Fitness trainers Bernard Watkins and Maria Murphy in Bellevue, Weaver shed some body fat and replaced it with muscle. The workout included old-school exercise like pushups and situps, along with a couple new cardiovascular activities to build endurance.

Two to three times a week, Weaver would do 60-minute Muay Thai workouts with a punching bag, at three-minute intervals. He also spent 90 minutes in the swimming pool, doing laps or lifting weights against water resistance.

Weaver, who maintained his playing weight of 253 pounds, said they were among the most difficult workouts of his life.

“It’s more mental than physical, by far,” said Watkins, who started training Weaver after the 2006 football season. “The objective is to push the body to the point where it surrenders, and you find refuge in the spirit.”

After spending his first three NFL seasons in Strong’s shadow, Weaver took his former teammate’s advice by hitting the gym.

“Whatever you can do to keep yourself in shape,” Strong said Thursday, “I think that’s just going to help him.”

This time last year, Weaver was working as Strong’s backup while fighting desperately to stay in the NFL. A subpar training camp left Weaver’s job status in jeopardy — so much so that Holmgren pulled him aside and gave him a blunt speech about how Weaver was about to get cut.

“I thought it was important that he hear from me: ‘Look, if you don’t fix this, you’re not going to be here,’” Holmgren said Thursday. “It would have been a shame, but we were prepared to do that. Fortunately, he got it, and he went with it.”

Almost a year later, Weaver appreciates the gesture.

“That was tough at first,” he said this week. “But one thing that coach really expressed by having that talk with me was how much he cared. There aren’t too many people who are going to let you know exactly what they’re going to do to you if they didn’t care.

“So it meant a lot to me for him to say that. It got me going. Mentally, I just had to have confidence in myself, and that’s what happened.”

Weaver eventually earned a roster spot and, after Strong went down with a career-ending neck injury in October, Weaver took over the starting job. He endured some lumps early on, but grew as a blocker and now looks like the team’s fullback of the future.

But nothing is ever set in stone.

“I have very high expectations for Leonard,” Holmgren said. “He is as talented a fullback as I have had. The only thing that prevents him from being successful every single play is Leonard. He’s strong enough, he’s fast enough, he has great skill. He has become a very good blocker.

“He just has to concentrate every play. I always tell him: never think like you’ve arrived, always go like you have something to prove to me. When he approaches it that way, he’s a very good player.”