By Gregg Bell
The News Tribune
RENTON — Bobby Wagner does boxing.
He does mixed martial arts.
He does swimming.
He does yoga.
He does massages.
That, he says, is why Bobby Wagner does tackling better than any Seahawk ever has.
“I feel like I’ve been taking care of my body way better than I’ve taken care of it in the last years. I’ve finally got a routine with massages and yoga and swimming and all these different things that I do. I think that’s helped me not get hurt.”
That alone has made a huge, record-pace difference.
Injuries have nagged or sidelined him the previous three years. This season not only has Wagner not missed a game, his missed only one snap on defense. That was Oct. 23 at Arizona, when he and teammates got so dehydrated while playing 95 snaps in the overtime tie they got intravenous fluids during and after the game.
He and K.J. Wright are Seattle’s unique linebacker duo that is versatile enough to stay on the field even when the Seahawks go to nickel defense with extra backs.
Wagner is the NFL’s leader in tackles. He has 88 stops in his last seven games. That’s 12.5 tackles per game — more than the rate of 12.2 Chris Spielman sustained in the 1994 season for the Detroit Lions to set the unofficial NFL single-season record for tackles at 195.
His 16 tackles three weeks ago in the Monday-night win over Buffalo were the most in a game in his five-year career.
With the Seahawks blitzing him more up the middle this season, the 108 tackles Wagner has through 10 games are already more than he had in his entire 2014 regular season — when he was an All-Pro for the first and only time. He’s well on his way to breaking his career high of 140 tackles as a rookie in 2012.
He’s on pace for 173 tackles entering Sunday’s game at Tampa Bay (5-5). Terry Beeson owns the Seahawks’ single-season record, 153 tackles in 1978. That was the Seahawks’ third season in existence. That was the also year the NFL began playing a 16-game regular season.
“He continues to create big plays,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “He’s making plays in the backfield, really kind of standout hits and tackles to go along with all the numbers that he’s getting. He had three, I think, tackles in the backfield (last weekend in beating Philadelphia). Just great plays and great tackles and highlight hits.”
Carroll says it’s because of more than just Wagner’s boxing and MMA and swimming and yoga and massages.
“That’s due to his ability to diagnose plays better than ever. He’s better than he’s ever been. He’s smarter, sharper, more aware of taking advantage of the teaching and game plan and all of that.”
“You’re just seeing a guy really hitting it right. He’s really on it.”
And not on a training table as much.
Last season his ankle bothered him in September. Then as October became November 2015 he played through a pectoral injury.
In 2014 he finished an October home loss to Dallas with a painful turf toe injury then missed the next five games.
The year before that he missed a game with an ankle injury and also had a sore knee.
That 2013 season was the one that opened the league’s eyes to how athletic — and vital — Wagner was to Seattle’s defense. The Seahawks won Super Bowl 48 that season, smashing Denver 43-8 with a defense Wagner anchored with his combination of speed and hitting most middle linebackers don’t have.
Then again, most middle linebackers are bigger than 6 feet and (maybe) 245 pounds.
Attention gained, Wagner became an All-Pro for the 2014 season. He and Carolina’s Luke Kuechly became known as the league’s elite middle linebackers. At the start of training camp for the 2015 season, Seattle rewarded Wagner with a $43 million, four-year contract extension.
Kuechly kept that status last season as his Panthers reached Super Bowl 50. Wagner got criticized by some for not keeping pace. He played more in pass coverage and had just ½ a sack, his career low. He didn’t get selected as a first-team All-Pro last season, though his 114 tackles were actually 10 more than he had the previous season. Some said his play fell off, that he was no longer elite like Kuechly.
This summer, NFL Network listed its top 100 players. Wagner wasn’t one of them.
He lashed back on social media against his haters, and specifically the top-100 snub, with one word: “Disrespect.”
The chip that has motivated him into each stage of his football life was back.
Coming out of Colony High School in Ontario, California, he was labeled a mere two-star recruit. The only way he met then-USC coach Pete Carroll was when Carroll was trying to recruit a teammate, not Wagner, to the Trojans. Wagner left home and played for Utah State instead.
He thought he was the best middle linebacker in college football, and for the 2012 draft should have been a first-round pick. But largely, he feels, because he was from Utah State he didn’t get drafted until the second round — by Carroll and the Seahawks. Wagner joked after the draft Carroll said he remembered him from high school. And that Carroll recalled Wagner was “about 5 feet 4” at the time.
So when the critics said he regressed last season off his All-Pro level, Wagner had a familiar, slighted feeling.
“There were a lot of things that I was tired of hearing, whether it was that, whether it was what media people even in this area were saying,” he said. “So I was just tired of having my name get followed by some disrespect.
Wagner first began boxing training when Ken Norton Jr. — son of the 1970s heavyweight champion and ex-Marine that once broke Muhammed Ali’s jaw in a bout — was Wagner’s linebackers coach with the Seahawks.
When Norton left before last season to become the defensive coordinator for the Oakland Raiders, Wagner stopped training in boxing. But this past offseason he was working out in Los Angeles near where he grew up in Ontario, California.
“I found a little boxing gym,” Wagner said. “And I found a little boxing gym here in Seattle, in Bellevue, and I just started doing it again.”
How does the work in the boxing gym translate to Wagner’s day job with the Seahawks?
“Quickness,” he said, well, quickly.
“Quick hands and endurance and the jump rope and all that stuff (for) the footwork. Everything is precision. Everything is focus. So that kind of focus carries on and makes me focus a little bit more on the field.
“There’s also some MMA stuff, so hand placement and hand work. That’s probably helped me in my blitzing.”
Wagner isn’t doing any sparring in the ring. The Seahawks wouldn’t exactly be thrilled with him trading head shots and body blows in the name of quickness.
“No, I’m not there with Floyd (Mayweather) and them. Yet,” he joked. “Just give me a couple more years.”
Wagner also swims. Regularly. He gets in the pool most Tuesdays, the usual off day for players in the NFL week. And that’s where he will be Friday afternoon, just before the Seahawks’ 5½ hour flight to Tampa, Florida.
“It’s very relaxing,” he said. “I try to incorporate on my off days, or Fridays before we leave on the plane. I just go for a swim.”
Hey, whatever works. Wagner’s back on top again. Not just on defense for the Seahawks on top of the NFC West.
On top of the entire NFL.
“Just trying to prove everybody wrong again,” Wagner said.
“Just like I normally do in life.”
Extra points
The team held a Thanksgiving afternoon practice and the list of 11 that did not practice Wednesday was down to 10. Cornerback Richard Sherman was full go after a day off to rest his ankle. … Starting center Justin Britt is a new concern. He missed a second consecutive day with an ankle injury. … Safety Earl Thomas and cornerback DeShawn Shead didn’t practice for the second straight day because of hamstring strains that are likely to keep them out of Sunday’s game at Tampa Bay. … Our kind of guy: rookie tackle Rees Odhiambo tweeted a Happy Thanksgiving greeting to all following practice with a video of Snoopy in a chef’s hat carving turkey with Woodstock at his side.
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