Seahawks rookie Shaquem Griffin led the team with nine tackles in Thursday night’s preseason debut, and coach Pete Carroll liked what he saw.
Carroll said he’d need time to study the film to give Griffin a full grade, but there’s no doubt that Griffin is one of the more exciting players on the roster right now.
“I am really fired up about it,” Carroll said. “This is what he looks like in practice. He’s running around. He’s really fast. By understanding the scheme, he’s utilizing his opportunities to be on the attack. He’s a weapon in that regard. We have to see how accurate he was, if he was right if he was guessing a little bit, and how he hit it. We’re really fired up. He was involved in nine or 10 tackles in his first time out. That’s pretty good. He played quite a bit. He played a lot in the middle portion of this game, so we’ll get some really good looks.”
Griffin is on the second-string defense, so he did not play with his brother, starting cornerback Shaquill Griffin, who was pulled from the game after the first series. But Shaquem began playing in the second series and got a lot of playing time afterward.
Griffin, whose left hand was amputated when he was 4 years old, was one of the most inspiring players in this year’s NFL draft. He said after the game that he liked hitting opponents full-speed on the field, which he’s not always allowed to do in practice.
“It felt good to kind of get out there and get your feet wet and kind of get some hits in,” he said. “I know [with] the way the league works you don’t really get a chance to really tackle much. So to kind of get out there and get a few tackles in and hit people as hard as you can kind of felt good to hit other people today.”
