CHENEY – After taking the first steps toward proving that he’s healed from offseason knee surgery Wednesday, Seattle Seahawks tight end Jerramy Stevens spoke his first words of healing from the pain of a forgettable Super Bowl performance.
Stevens made his first public appearance in front of the media since Feb. 5, when he struggled with dropped passes in a 21-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XL.
Stevens had offseason knee surgery and hadn’t, until Wednesday, spoken of the most painful game of his NFL career.
“Obviously, it was disappointing for the team and hugely disappointing for me personally,” Stevens told a group of reporters after making his training camp debut Wednesday morning. “But that’s something that you have to deal with as an athlete. It’s not going to go as you plan it every game.
“The thing that’s helped me the most is that I know that I went out there and tried as hard as I could. I probably tried too hard, and that’s probably part of the reason why I didn’t play like I normally do.”
Stevens failed to corral at least five catchable passes in the Super Bowl, including two that he dropped without any help from the defense. All five plays came at critical times, and so Stevens’ performance was viewed as one of the main reasons the Seahawks lost the game.
He spoke to reporters in the Ford Field locker room immediately after the game but has been silent ever since – mainly because he was focused on coming back from knee surgery.
On Wednesday, he said his knee was feeling better and that his psyche was also on the road to recovery.
“You have to mature and grow from that,” said Stevens, who did catch one touchdown pass in the Super Bowl and had another long reception called back because of a holding penalty on teammate Sean Locklear. “Obviously, it was rough, but it’s behind me now and I’m using that as fuel to go forward.”
Coach Mike Holmgren said Wednesday that he had a one-on-one meeting with Stevens shortly after the Super Bowl to boost the player’s confidence.
“We had a discussion about how you bounce back from something,” Holmgren said Wednesday. “And I expect him to have a fine year; I really do. What he has to do is get over this injury thing. Once he believes his leg’s all right, then he’ll be fine.”
Holmgren added that he believed part of Stevens’s Super Bowl struggles came from the week of hype leading up to the game, the most notable of which came in the form of a daily exchange between Stevens and Steelers linebacker Joey Porter.
“It’s a distraction,” Holmgren said Wednesday. “He didn’t need it, and we didn’t need it, but it happened. … Yeah, I think it was a distraction, but that’s done. Now we press on.”
Stevens infuriated Porter five days before the Super Bowl when responding to a question about Steelers running back and Detroit native Jerome Bettis.
“It’s a heartwarming story,” Stevens was quoted as saying on Jan. 31, “but it will be a sad day when (Bettis) leaves without that trophy.”
Porter became incensed by the statement and continually called Stevens “soft” for the remainder of the week.
While Stevens’s performance did little to prove Porter wrong, Seattle’s 26-year-old tight end said Wednesday that the exchange did not affect his performance.
“If anything happened in that game, it was me trying too hard,” Stevens said. “I don’t think it had anything to do with the chatter before the game. It was just me trying to go out there and play too hard, instead of just relaxing and doing what I do.”
Asked whether he would hold his tongue in if he ever found himself in a similar situation, Stevens responded: “I wouldn’t. I don’t think I said something that was inappropriate or out of place last year. I just told my team that we were here to win. And I stick by that now.”
Stevens added that the media played a large part in overplaying the war of words between himself and Porter.
“You’re looking for stories in the Super Bowl,” he told a group of reporters on Wednesday. “I realize that that’s how it works, and I realize that that’s how Joey Porter works. But I can’t let any of that stuff affect how I prepare for the game.
“That’s an experience that I take with me now. And hopefully I’ll get another chance this year.”
More than anything, Stevens is trying to put the past behind him. He’s more concerned with a full recovery from the knee surgery than he is anything that happened in February, so Wednesday’s practice was a pretty good step in the right direction.
“I feel like I’m right on schedule,” said Stevens, who originally suffered the injury in Seattle’s playoff opener against Washington on Jan. 14. “I’m not there all the way yet, but I’m confident in all the trainers. I’ll just go out there every day and try to push myself to move forward.”
Lost in the hype of the Super Bowl performance was a career year that saw Stevens catch 45 passes for 554 yards and five touchdowns.
“I plan on moving forward and doing bigger and better things this year,” Stevens said. “I’ll just use that as a stepping stone. I took one step, and I have to continue to take steps forward.”
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