With the weekend’s five trades, the big-splash over the arrival of one-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson and the angst of Seattle waiving wide receiver Kasen Williams, it was easy to overlook what has the Seahawks most hyped about the 2017 season.
Earl Thomas is back. Fully-dedicated-again, all-the-way back.
You can understand — maybe even revel in — the excitement the Seahawks feel about the return of their three-time All-Pro safety, who is coming back from a broken leg suffered last December. He will start Sunday’s regular-season opener at Green Bay.
Thomas has been so fully into every practice at the free safety spot he’s owned and redefined since his rookie year of 2010, it’s easy to forget he was gone last winter.
That is, until you remember how Seattle’s season ended without him.
Prior to Thomas getting injured in a Dec. 4, 2016, home game against Carolina, Seattle led the NFL in fewest points allowed — 17 per game. The Seahawks had not allowed more than 25 points in any game and had held opponents to one or no touchdowns four times. They were seventh in total defense (335.6 yards allowed per game) and 10th against the pass (235.5).
Then Thomas collided with strong safety Kam Chancellor.
In the four games without Thomas — including one he watched from a Buffalo Wild Wings in Portland, Oregon, undercover with a hoodie up and sunglasses on — the Seahawks allowed their only 30-point games of the regular season: 38 points in a blowout loss at Green Bay and 34 points in the home defeat to Arizona on Christmas Eve. They allowed the 2-14 San Francisco 49ers to score 23 points. They lost in the divisional round of the playoffs in Atlanta in January because they gave up 36 points in the Georgia Dome.
Thomas promised when he surprisingly participated in the team’s minicamp in June that he’d start the opener against the Packers. Two and a half months later he’s made the Seahawks’ defense whole again.
“He’s doing great and I’m just thrilled for him,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. “The comeback that he’s made because of the way he’s approached his offseason had to be just impeccable. He just looks great, so he’s made great hits, great tackles. He’s ready to go. He’s showed us that. He showed the sparks of that way back in the OTA part when he first got some reps, that he was further ahead than we thought he would be.
“And, shoot, he’s just had a great camp and he’s played really well. He’s ready to go.”
Thomas and Chancellor, who underwent surgery on both ankles and was confined to a wheelchair for part of this offseason, completed the preseason fully participating throughout.
That’s another reason for the Seahawks to be pumped.
For all the focus and angst over how vital the iffy offensive line will be to this season, the return of Thomas is this team’s most dramatic improvement from its last games of 2016.
On Dec. 4, moments after he broke his shin colliding with Chancellor, Thomas unforgettably posted on Twitter his raw emotion of contemplating retirement.
“This game has been so good to me no regrets … A lot is running through my mind including retirement thanks for all the prayers,” Thomas wrote online that night.
Carroll said the injury and Thomas seeing his career mortality for the first time at age 28 changed the star’s mentality about the game to which he was already fiendishly dedicated.
“I think it challenged him,” Carroll said. “There was a time when he wasn’t sure. He was a little broken when it all happened and he didn’t know how he was going to handle things. But once he got his feet on the ground, got his vision clear, he has gone for it and I think it’s brought out his best and the great competitive nature, the great fire that burns in him.”
Said Thomas: “I think I used Twitter as a coping mechanism just to shoot my thoughts out there, but it was different. And it was difficult.”
But now he’s back as Seattle’s most important defender — just in time to begin a new season against two-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers and the Packers at Lambeau Field.
“It’s a revived Earl Thomas,” defensive coordinator Kris Richard said. “It’s not as if he’s ever taken this game for granted, but you could just see a guy relieved to be back out there, playing football again, doing what he loves to do.”
Extra Points
Williams didn’t last past one team on the NFL waiver wire. The Cleveland Browns, who had the first choice of all waived players, claimed him Sunday. … The Seahawks began setting their 10-man practice squad by re-signing second-year center Joey Hunt, undrafted rookie tight end Tyrone Swoopes, rookie seventh-round pick and wide receiver David Moore and defensive tackle Garrison Smith. Seattle released all of them Saturday.
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