A sprained ankle, a defensive rock and one thoroughly awful non-question

I heard the answer several times before I actually went back and listened to the question … errrr … statement Demond Williams was responding to.

That’s too bad.

Because initially, I thought the quarterback’s response would be found lacking by any Husky fans who are still trying to work through the hard feelings they’d had after “The Transfer Portal Pump Fake” from last month.

Once I heard the way Williams had essentially been lectured by a member of the media, however, I wound up feeling that he was way more polite and accommodating than could have been expected.

That’s a bit later, though. The Seahawks are in the Super Bowl so let’s get to that.

🩻 (Relatively) clean bill of health 

Did you hear that safety Nick Emmanwori left practice Wednesday because of a sprained ankle?

If you didn’t, don’t worry. The injury isn’t too severe. In fact, he spoke to reporters on Thursday, saying that while the injury was a bit of a scare, he’ll be ready to play on Sunday.

Now if you had heard about the injury, you’ve probably spent the past 24 hours getting incremental updates. You may have seen the footage of him limping as he walked out of an SUV Wednesday night after undergoing tests on the injured right ankle.

You may have even seen that David Chao – formerly an NFL team doctor – assessed it as a “right inversion ankle sprain” after looking at the video of the limping Emmanwori.

This was followed by video of Emmanwori walking into Thursday’s press conference with only the slightest limp.

 This brings up a question: Does the amount of knowledge we now have access to and the frequency with which it is dispensed give us a worse understanding of what’s going to happen?

Something to ponder.

🪨 Seattle’s rock

I do not think that Ernest Jones IV is the best player on the Seahawks defense.

I would list Devon Witherspoon and Leonard Williams ahead of him. Probably Byron Murphy, too, and Demarcus Lawrence but now I’m factoring in the positional value of a defensive end.

None of those guys are more valuable to the Seahawks than Jones, though.

He’s the keystone of this defense.

Some of that is leadership.

Some of that is communication. But most of it is because he is demon for four quarters on Sunday. Five if you have to play the Rams in overtime.

Which gets to one of the bigger-picture mysteries I have about professional football: I don’t understand the market for middle linebackers. At all.

They get called the quarterback of the defense. They have to be stout and physical in stopping the run and able to drop back in pass coverage.

I know everyone says it’s important.

And then I think about how the Rams looked at Jones – who’d started for them in the Super Bowl as a rookie – and decided to trade him heading into last season, which would have been his fourth with the team.

Then I think back to when Seattle had Bobby Wagner. He was universally hailed as one of the best at his position. He is a future Hall of Famer, and yet as Seattle’s defense remained stubbornly mediocre beginning in 2018, I would hear people question whether he was all that good.

I’m talking about more than a chunk of fans on Twitter, too. People who were in the Seahawks building would mention a lack of “splash” plays. It made me think back to when I first started covering the NFL in 2005 and Brian Urlacher and Ray Lewis were considered the gold standard at that position.

In 2006, Sports Illustrated conducted an anonymous poll of NFL players asking for the most overrated. Terrell Owens was first, Urlacher second.

I can recall people arguing that Lewis was overrated while he was still playing, something you do not hear very much anymore.

Here’s what I know: Every great defense I’ve seen has a great middle linebacker.

There are times they become bona fide stars: Mike Singletary, Urlacher, Lewis.

It surprises me, however, how frequently the importance of good middle linebackers gets dismissed or minimized.

I do not understand how someone as good as Jones has been was traded twice in the span of three months.

Seattle is certainly glad it happened, though. He is an absolutely essential ingredient to what the Seahawks have done.

⁉️ That wasn’t exactly a question

On Wednesday, quarterback Demond Williams was among the four players the UW football team made available for a press conference that included coach Jedd Fisch.

It wasn’t until Thursday morning that I listened to the whole press conference, and I was surprised to hear that the first question posed to Williams wasn’t really a question at all but rather a 53-second lecture.

I’ll get to Williams’ answer in just a second, but first let me lay out the two main problems I have:

1. The framing is manipulative.

   If the fellow who said this thinks that the quote from Williams in the initial press release “rang as kind of hollow” or that it seemed “scripted” then he should say that. Attributing those judgments to what he heard “when you talk to the fan base” is lame as hell.

   I’m a UW alum, and a UW fan and this guy absolutely does not speak for me yet he states these very subjective judgments as if they were established facts.

   Also, while the lecturer sounds sympathetic at the beginning, he’s actually using a very passive-aggressive approach to imply that Williams was “young” and “immature.”

2. There’s not a freaking question to be found.

   He instructs Williams to speak “without all the agents and all of the other people around you telling you what to say.” He says it should be “something heartfelt.”

   If I was 19 and someone told me to say something heartfelt, I would have been tempted to ask that individual why he felt entitled to talk to me as if I were his son.

   Demond, however, seems much classier than I was at 19 and perhaps more mature than I am now because he responded with enthusiasm and grace.

Personally, I liked that Williams didn’t provide the pound of emotional flesh that this particular media member was looking for.

Again, that probably says something about my own perspective.

I also know that there are some fans who were hoping for something more substantial from Williams and who don’t feel the same about him moving forward.

I think that’s totally fair.

One of the things I hate about contemporary sports dialogue is that it’s become a zero-sum argument. It’s not.

We all have different experiences that give us different perspectives. I don’t think my feelings are right. They’re just my feelings, and if you feel differently, that’s OK. You just have a different perspective, different experience.

What I do mind is when a media member asks a stilted questions or – in this case – makes a statement that is constructed to get the player to say what that media member wants to hear. 

It’s inappropriate and in this case incredibly ineffective.