Seahawks ‘locked in’ after linebacker Bobby Wagner gives impassioned talk to teammates

RENTON, Wash. – The Seattle Seahawks brought Bobby Wagner back for moments like Sunday, when he made 19 tackles – one shy off his career high and the team record – in helping provide one of the lone bright spots of a 30-13 loss to the Rams.

They also brought him back for moments like Wednesday, when he gathered the rest of the Seahawks around him just as practice was about to begin and gave an impassioned talk.

While the exact wording Wagner used wasn’t necessarily discernible from where media could watch, the point of the talk was obvious – what happened Sunday was not acceptable.

An hour or so before he gave that talk, Wagner – the only player left from the Seahawks team that won the Super Bowl following the 2013 season – held his regular Wednesday news conference and said he planned to tell teammates this week that what happened Sunday was just one game, but the Seahawks also can’t let it become two or three games.

“We have to be focused on this week,” Wagner said. “I feel confident we’ll get there.”

Whether what Wagner, and other veteran leaders, have said this week really resonated won’t become obvious until Sunday, when the Seahawks play the Lions in Detroit.

But teammates Thursday said they appreciated what Wagner had to say.

“I think Bobby did a great job of just reminding guys who we are as a team,” quarterback Geno Smith said. “Whenever you have a tough loss like that, you can kind of start looking around and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ We have to know who we are as a team. And we’re a confident bunch. We have to continue to remain confident and play with that swagger and that energy. That was his message, was being confident and have that energy.”

Or as cornerback Rig Woolen put it: “Just telling us that yesterday is yesterday, you can’t really change it. Just have your mind ready for today because tomorrow you don’t know what you’re going to get, so today just have your mind ready for today and take care of your task at hand. … Because he kind of sensed that there was a vibe on the team that guys are still feeling a type of way toward the loss even though we’ve got another big game coming up and it’s just Week one.”

Woolen felt the talk made a difference in Wednesday’s practice.

“We had a great practice,” Woolen said. “I feel like that’s the type of stuff you need sometimes on the team because like I said, Bobby is our leader. So whenever he sense something wrong with the team, it feels good to know that we’ve got a guy on the team that can help us self reflect but also help us come together as a team, too, because that’s what makes a team closer.”

Certainly, something has to change after a season-opening defeat as disappointing as any in the team’s recent memory. A week ago, coaches and players talked of the high expectations for this season in the wake of a 9-8 record a year ago that stamped the Seahawks as one of the surprises in the NFL.

Now they are staring down the face at an 0-2 start unless they can pull an upset in Detroit, and with what remains a tough opening to the schedule. Seattle hosts Carolina at home on Sept. 23 but then plays its following two games on the road, on Oct. 2 at the New York Giants and Oct. 15 at Cincinnati, each playoff teams a year ago.

“We’ve got to come to work,” said safety Quandre Diggs, who was voted a co-captain of the Seahawks along with Wagner. “We’re grown men. That’s what we get paid to do. So, I mean, if you can’t come do your job after something tough like that then maybe this work is not cut out for you.”

It was Diggs who both publicly and privately campaigned the Seahawks to bring back Wagner after he was released by the Rams in March, knowing at the time it would also return a strong leader to the locker room after Diggs and Al Woods had been named captains in 2022.

“That’s normal Bobby,” Diggs said when asked about Wagner’s prepractice speech. “I feel like you guys are making it something bigger than what it was. Like, that’s who he is. That’s what he does.“

For some of the players, Wagner’s talk and his mentorship of the team this week is something with which they are familiar from his initial 10-year tenure with the team.

But showing how quickly things can change, Woolen is one of 30 players on the 53 who has arrived since the 2021 season, after which Wagner was released and played a year with the Rams before returning.

Woolen, a rookie last season and nine years younger than Wagner, joked that his first memory of Wagner is from playing football video games.

“Bobby has a strong voice,” Woolen said.

“People like to listen to him, and just the guy that he is he carries a lot of weight with him because he knows what to do in different situations because he has seen almost every single one of them. With a guy like Bobby speaking, up a lot of guys trust him because – one, he’s our leader, and, two, he’s a guy you can trust, and he’s been here.”

It will take more than words, of course, to beat the Lions, who have won nine of 11 since last season and are expecting one of their most fevered home crowds in years due to the team’s recent winning and the unveiling of a statue for Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders on Sunday.

Wagner thinks the team will be ready.

“I would say we’re locked in,” he said. “You have to get that bad taste out of your mouth. You definitely didn’t want to perform that way. You see guys more focused; you see guys on the details, and that’s what it’s going to take to beat this Lions team.”