When the Seahawks said they were bringing in 30-something players on a tryout basis to flush out the roster for their three-day rookie minicamp, my initial thought was good luck with that.
And that was followed quickly by visions of offensive linemen running into one another while trying to block for a running play; cornerbacks colliding with receivers, and vice versa, on pass plays; and just a mish-mash of mangled assignments.
It didn’t happen. None of it. The players – a group that also included the team’s 10 draft choices and 10 other rookie free agents who had been signed after the draft – went through two-hour practices on Friday and Saturday and a final 100-minute session on Sunday.
While it wasn’t exclusively an exercise in precision, it was closer to that than the maddening mayhem it could have been.
“That’s always a concern,” defensive coordinator Gus Bradley said Monday when asked about how things could have gone over the weekend.
“But it started with that first team meeting. They were pretty serious and they were into it. Then we went to our defensive unit meeting and their eyes were wide open and books were open ready to take notes. So it was really impressive what they got done.”
This canopy of congratulations also needs to cover the rest of the coaching staff, and head coach Pete Carroll made sure it did in his minicamp-wrap assessment on Sunday afternoon.
“The coaches did a good job of getting them here,” Carroll said. “The guys were ready for camp. They could execute the offense and the defense. It’s a lot of studying that was done in these last two weeks before they got here and everybody applied themselves very well.”
Rookie quarterback 
And as linebackers coach Ken Norton, Jr., put it, “You only get one chance at a first impression.”
With that said, here’s a look at a few players who made quite an impression:
Turbin also showed he can catch the ball out of the backfield. If he’s able to pick up the blitz as a blocker, Turbin could be the third-down back, in addition to complementing leading rusher
“Too early to tell,” Carroll said when asked about Turbin replacing Justin Forsett as the third-down back. “That’s stuff that has to be determined. He has not had to block a lot in pass protection, but I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t. He’s perfectly suited to do that and he didn’t look far off, technique-wise. So he’s just got to get guys roaring downhill at him and we’ll see.”
“He’s just what we thought he was,” Carroll said of Irvin – which was a pass-rusher good enough to select with the 15th pick overall. “He’s very, very fast. He’s very instinctive. … He’s definitely going to be a guy that we’re going to find ways to use him and it’s really going to fit in the pattern that we had thought.”
“It’s very early. But we’re happy with what we see so far,” Norton said. “But when it comes down to can he run, can he hit, can he fit into the profile and what we do best here? That’s absolutely. He certainly looks the part, he acts the part and he works the part.”
“I like Donny Lisowski,” Carroll said. “He was all over the place out there and made a bunch of plays. So I’m really fired up about him. I think he’ll surprise you.”
Too late. The entire three-day rookie minicamp was a surprise, because of the plays that were made and the mistakes that weren’t.
