A Spring In His Step Cornerback Has Boundless Enthusiasm For Game He Grew Up With

There’s something beyond the awesome raw talent that goes into the complete pro. Maybe it’s professional habits, like lingering on the practice lot an extra minute to sign an autograph.

Maybe it’s the joy the complete package takes in the work of playing a game.

Maybe it’s the absence of an excuse or the knack of sharing the credit. Outline professionalism and Shawn Springs is beginning to fit the definition. Learned it from the ground up, in training camps and locker rooms, as the son of former Dallas Cowboys running back Ron Springs.

After the first of two tough workouts with the Seattle Seahawks on Tuesday, Springs bounded off the Eastern Washington University practice field as if all this was fun.

“It is fun,” said the 23-year-old Springs, the second-year cornerback and the Seahawks’ first-round draft pick a year ago.

Football under a blazing August sun, surrounded by wheat fields and a few curious locals? This is your idea of a hoot?

“It’s fun to me,” Springs insisted. “This is an opportunity to get better. If you look at this as a job, or a task, and you’re not out here trying to get better, then it can get rough. But to me, it’s fun, just trying to improve.”

Springs grew up with an abiding respect for the sacrifices that can lead to a winning edge.

“Just growing up with guys like Tony Dorsett, Everson Walls, Ed (Too Tall) Jones - I remember when Bill Bates first got into the league - helped a lot,” Springs said of his Dallas experience. “My analogy is, if you’re dad is a mechanic you know a little bit about cars. I guess being in football all my life helps me now.”

Being in football the past month helps him now.

A year ago, Springs reported late to camp while contract terms were ironed out. He spent much of the preseason playing catch-up. Then, just when he should have been reaching full stride, he suffered a broken thumb in Denver that cost him six games.

But 10 games as a starter, and a series of minicamps and nearly four weeks of training camp in this, his second year, have made him a more effective player.

“You can see he’s more comfortable with what we’re doing defensively,” Seahawks coach Dennis Erickson said. “He’s got a lot more confidence in himself. That makes a big difference.”

“For me, the toughest adjustment wasn’t going against receivers in the NFL,” Springs said. “I had (the Seahawks) Joey (Galloway) in college. I had to go against Terry Glenn (now of the New England Patriots) in college. I kind of knew what NFL receivers would be like.

“For me, the biggest thing was just getting used to the quarterbacks. You can’t imagine what a John Elway or a Jeff George or any AFC West quarterback is like until you go against them.

“Everyone is a different challenge. There are a lot of different schemes, and everything moves so much faster.”

Even the best - or those, like Springs, striving to be the best - get caught looking. It happened Saturday night, when Peyton Manning of the Colts found Marvin Harrison for a 48-yard touchdown pass and run. The road to the end zone led right through Shawn Springs.

“It was a bad read,” Springs said. “I thought one thing and I thought wrong. I thought I saw the tight end block - or stand straight up - and I just sat down, and the guy just caught a slant and took it to the house.

“It was a bad read. It happens sometimes.”

It looks on tape as if Springs expected inside help.

“Ahhh, no,” he said, breaking into a grin and then a laugh. “I thought I was (getting help). That’s the way I played it, but no, it was all me.”

No hedging. My fault. Only the timing of the error was fortunate.

“I’m glad it’s preseason,” he said. “That’s when you can make mistakes.”

It wasn’t the first time Springs and Manning had met.

“I had an opportunity to talk to Peyton before the game,” Springs said. “We played against each other in the Citrus Bowl like three years ago. We met again at the Playboy All-America banquet. We had an opportunity to spend some time together there. So we kind of knew each other.”

Springs’ assessment of Manning’s 24-21 loss to the Seahawks?

“I thought he did all right, with the pressure he had on him as the No. 1 pick (of the draft). It’s rough,” Springs said.

As the third pick of last year’s NFL draft, Springs knows something about expectations. “There’s pressure, but you can only put so much pressure on yourself,” he said. “After awhile, you just play your game. You stop worrying about what everybody’s saying about the No. 1 pick or the No. 3 pick.

“You just come in and have fun.”

As each day passes without Warren Moon in camp, the Seahawks on both sides of the football seem to be buying into the notion that Jon Kitna could be their starting quarterback.

“Kitna has the opportunity to do some great things for us,” Springs said. “Not only can he throw real well, but he moves around in the pocket and makes things happen. I can just tell he’s getting so much better.”

Moon watch

The timing between quarterback Jon Kitna and top-unit receivers Joey Galloway, Mike Pritchard and James McKnight improves daily.

Part of it is familiarity. Until his promotion last week, Kitna spent most of camp throwing to second-unit receivers. He spent part of Tuesday’s scrimmage looking for and finding Galloway.

Meanwhile, Moon is midway through his fourth week as a holdout, and “needs to get in pretty quick if he’s going to get in,” Erickson said.

“If he doesn’t, we’re prepared for that because we’re making some competition between Jon and John (Friesz),” Erickson added. “That could be for the starting job if Warren decides he doesn’t want to play any longer.”

At what point does Moon start hurting from workouts missed?

“I’d like to have seen him in here yesterday,” Erickson said. “Every day he misses hurts him, from now on. You don’t know how he’s going to adjust when he gets in here, to get prepared. That’s hard to say right now.”

“I know one thing: we’ve got three preseason games left. He won’t be able to play in the one coming up. So that leaves him with two. Normally, in that last one, you don’t like to play your starters.”

1. SEAHAWKS NOTES Standout defensive tackle Sam Adams suffered an ankle sprain in the morning practice and missed the afternoon drill but could be back today in the Seahawks’ final double practice in Cheney. After 8:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. sessions today, there’s a brief workout Thursday, before the team breaks camp. Erickson will continue double-days for another couple of days next week in Kirkland. “I don’t think it was anything serious,” the coach said of Adams’ ankle… . Offensive tackle Howard “House” Ballard remained out of practice Tuesday, saving what mileage he has left in his knees for Saturday night’s game with the 49ers. “We’ve kept him off the field for the last three practices,” Erickson said. “It’s not necessary for him to practice all the time.” Ballard probably will work out this morning. … The Seahawks’ overall level of fitness is higher, observers say, than a year ago. Erickson agrees. “The (hot) weather has made a huge (positive) difference and it’s going to make a difference down the road,” he said. “We ran ‘em pretty hard (Monday) and real hard (Tuesday). We’re going to start backing off. The fourth week (of camp) is an extremely hard week physically.”

2. SEAHAWKS TRAINING CAMP Today: Practice, 8:45 a.m., 2:45 p.m.