Milloy offers veteran view

RENTON, Wash. – Fourteen years’ worth of perspective sits in the corner of Seattle’s locker room, the last cubicle in the line of Seattle’s defensive backs and right next to the wide receivers.

Lawyer Milloy has seen just about everything in professional football. He has started in two Super Bowls, been selected to four Pro Bowls and even had a coach quit in midseason.

He has been on a Super Bowl champion and been on teams that finished at the bottom of the division. So what does the veteran voice of Seattle’s locker room see now that he’s 36 and his hometown franchise is 5-9?

“It’s unbelievable,” Milloy said. “We’re still practicing hard, we’re still upbeat. You come in the locker room, and it’s not like a morgue. Guys are still working toward the coach’s vision, what he wants us to become.

“Are we there yet? Obviously not.”

But Milloy sees progress, and he has something behind those words that’s impossible to fake in the NFL. Credibility. He’s been in this league too long to be ignored.

“When there’s something that needs to be said or I feel like I need to say something, I feel I can say something,” Milloy said. “I try to remind these guys: Don’t accept losing. Still focus on the goal, which is to win ballgames in this league. That’s the only thing that matters.”

The Seahawks signed Milloy one week before the regular season began. Milloy was brought in to play special teams and serve as a backup safety, but he has played his way onto the field as coaches have implemented some three-safety packages.

As much as anything, Milloy embodies the steel-toed ruggedness coach Jim Mora wants on his roster.

“He brings a real toughness to the game and a real professionalism to the game,” Mora said. “That’s one of the reasons he’s lasted so long.”

How long?

Well, to put it in perspective, Milloy was chosen in the second round of the 1996 draft out of the University of Washington, No. 36 overall by New England. Seahawks right cornerback Josh Wilson was just starting kids football.

“I was 11 years old,” Wilson said. “So that tells you something about his age, about his knowledge.”

Milloy started in two Super Bowls for the Patriots, one for Bill Parcells and the other for Bill Belichick. He has been on four teams that won 10 or more regular-season games, and four that finished with double-digit losses.

He has been around long enough to know that losing doesn’t have to last. Not in this league.

“You don’t want to say it’s rebuilding,” Milloy said. “Because in the NFL there is no rebuilding. You’re building toward something.”

Two years ago in Atlanta, he started on a Falcons team that went 4-12 and had coach Bobby Petrino walk away in midseason. Last season, Atlanta was 11-5 and reached the playoffs. Milloy wasn’t re-signed in the offseason and waited for an opportunity to open up with the Seahawks.

What has Milloy tried to impart to Seattle’s locker room?

“There’s a certain guy that this organization and our coach is looking for,” Milloy said. “And you’ve got to try to fit into that mold, because you know obviously there’s going to be changes next year. Either the head coach is going to make changes or the new GM that knows nobody here, he’s going to be making some changes and making some big decisions, so you better go out there and put some good stuff on tape.”

He speaks from 14 seasons of experience.