Boulware still learning on the job
At this point last year, Seahawks strong safety Michael Boulware was your prototypical NFL rookie, adjusting to the difference in speed and quality of professional football.
Unlike most others, he did it at a new position – moving from outside linebacker, where he started for three years at Florida State before Seattle drafted him in the second round (53rd overall) in the 2004 draft.
Imagine stepping into a new job and having to learn how to walk first.
“It was a real hard time (last year),” said Boulware, designated the starting strong safety this year for the Seahawks. “Everything you do is new, every look is new, but we take it play by play, and slowly it comes to you.”
While learning the new position, he somehow found time to establish a reputation as a big-play defender, picking off passes in his first two NFL games and working his way into a starting role for the final four games of the regular season and the 27-20 loss to St. Louis in the NFC playoffs.
He made a couple All-Rookie teams, and was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week in Week 11 when his 63-yard interception return for a touchdown with 56 seconds left gave the Seahawks a 24-17 win over the visiting Miami Dolphins.
For the humble Boulware, the magnitude of winning a game for a team on the NFL playoff bubble didn’t really register right away.
“It hit me maybe two or three weeks after the season when more people were talking about it,” he said. “I really don’t focus on stuff like that. It’s a team effort.”
There were more individual highlights for the 6-foot-2, 223-pounder last season, including a game-saving interception in Week 14 against Minnesota, when he preserved a 27-23 Seattle win by intercepting Randy Moss’s pass off a reverse as the Vikings were at Seattle’s 20-yard-line with just over two minutes remaining.
He also saved a 10-6 win over Tampa Bay in Week 2 with a late interception, one of a Seahawks rookie-record five last season.
“I think it was just a confidence booster,” Boulware said of the big plays. “I was just playing as hard as I can and the ball kept falling in my hands. It wasn’t necessarily anything I was doing, but shows the rest of my teammates are working hard around me.”
He’ll have to be more than just a big play waiting to happen for a defensive backfield which needs some consistency after waiting out some growing pains.
Boulware joins third-year safety Ken Hamlin, third-year corner Marcus Trufant and either of a pair of newcomers, Kelly Herndon (fourth year) or Andre Dyson (fifth year), as a likely starting secondary.
Last year, Seattle was 23rd in the NFL in pass defense, allowing 224.3 yards a game while facing the second-most pass attempts in the league.
Even though Boulware has had a year in the league, he’s still got a lot to learn, according to defensive backs coach Teryl Austin.
“It’s just everything – read, scheme, where you go with your eyes, angles – because it’s all different than being a linebacker,” Austin said. “I mean, he’s just had one year and most of these guys have been playing defensive back a long time. He’s got a lot of room for improvement, but you know he’s going to continue to improve and he’s going to be a good player.”
Boulware would agree.
“I’m making a lot of mistakes right now,” Boulware said. “I think I’m overanalyzing my plays, but I definitely am a lot more confident than I was last year because I’m another year into it.”
With that confidence comes added responsibility, and Boulware would like to become more dependable in the secondary, helping his teammates instead of consistently relying on them.
If all else fails, he can still turn to that natural big-play instinct.
“He’s a ball magnet,” Austin said. “You can never discount that.”
Hamlin practices for first time
Ken Hamlin, the second half of the Seahawks’ safety tandem, went through his first practice of training camp. He’s been sitting out so far, recovering from off-season shoulder surgery. Seattle plans on easing him back, using him in non-contact drills at least until next week, according to head coach Mike Holmgren.
“He has progressed the way we hoped,” Holmgren said. “We are going to try to avoid contact with him. At least he can make the calls and do the stuff he has to do without hitting.”
In Hamlin’s absence, Marquand Manuel has been taking snaps with the first-team defense. Manuel appeared in 15 games as a reserve for the Seahawks last year, making 10 tackles.
Holmgren remembers Young
On the day Steve Young was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Holmgren, his former mentor, reflected on the scrambling left-handed quarterback.
“He is just a great athlete,” Holmgren said. “He is a very bright guy and very, very competitive. He is certainly deserving of this honor. He had it all. It was a total package.”
Holmgren was quarterbacks coach at Brigham Young University while Young played there in 1982 and ‘83, and was Young’s QB coach with the San Francisco 49ers from 1987-91, and from 1989-91, Holmgren doubled as the 49ers offensive coordinator.
Notes
Running backs Shaun Alexander and Maurice Morris worked out on the side during Sunday’s practices, as both are fighting tender hamstrings. Holmgren doesn’t know yet if either will be ready to play in the first preseason game at New Orleans on Aug. 12. If neither can go, Kerry Carter, a third-year back out of Stanford, would likely get the majority of the carries. … OLB Jamie Sharper got the day off to rest and WR Joe Jurevicius was absent Sunday. Holmgren said Jurevicius was in Seattle handling a personal problem and he expected him to return today.