The similarities have not been lost on 
He played his college football on the East Coast (Rutgers), and so did
The Seahawks' newest quarterback and the team's starting quarterback have followed nearly parallel paths in reaching the NFL.
“I always heard about how good Matt was,” Teel said. “To actually watch him work and the way he goes about it, the mental approach he takes towards it is incredible. For me, to come in and watch how he does it, you can't even put into words how beneficial that is.”
Teel then flashed a smile before adding, “Look at Matt. He was a sixth-round guy. He didn't get an invite the combine. He came from a very similar position, and now where he finds himself is pretty amazing.”
Amazing was not a word associated with Teel last season, when his draft stock took a direct hit as the Scarlet Knights not only got off to a 1-5 start, but scored 14 or fewer points four times. As in most cases, the quarterback took too much of the blame.
“Believe me,” Teel said, “there were times when I went in and I sat with my head coach and said, 'Coach, I don't know how I'm going to do this. This is hard. I'm getting letters from fans saying how I'm ruining the program.'
“I'd be walking though campus and I could hear people say behind my back, 'There's the quarterback who threw the interception last week.' There was a lot of pressure.”
Then Rutgers ripped off seven consecutive victories, including a bowl win over the North Carolina State, scoring at least 30 points in five of those games.
“It definitely was a tale of two seasons,” Teel said.
But, unlike most cases, the quarterback did not receive too much of the credit.
One pre-draft publication rated Teel a “priority free agent,” adding, “Teel was a model of inconsistency throughout his career and really started off his senior season slowly.”
Fortunately for Teel, not every NFL team agreed. In fact, the Seahawks viewed his Jekyll-and-Hyde senior season as a plus in their evaluation process.
Say what?
“He had an interesting year, in that they started off the year really bad and really had some turmoil from within,” club president Tim Ruskell said. “It looked like the thing might just tank for the whole season.”
Obviously that was not the case.
“Really, Mike was the catalyst to bring those guys together and then went on a run,” Ruskell said.
“And the (scouts) that maybe went in early and kind of gave up on him - 'Well, maybe this guy can't play' - missed out on what he was as a leader and what he did with that team.
“It was kind of an amazing thing.”
Not to mention nerve-wracking, and even confidence-sapping. But Teel persevered.
“I was fortunate because I had a lot of good people around me - the coaching staff, my teammates, my family, my friends,” Teel said. “What happened last year, that's not a tangible thing. You can't really understand how hard it is unless you actually go through it.
“How you handle adversity, how you overcome adversity, it shows a lot about the person and the player. For me, I was fortunate that, for the most part, I was able to handle it the right way and I was able to overcome it.”
The Seahawks did extra homework before deciding that Teel was worth selecting in the sixth round. They talked to people at Rutgers about him. They brought him in before the draft, and not just for a how's-it-going meeting. Teel was put on the board and asked how he would handle things in certain situations.
“When the fingers were pointed at him, what did he do?” offensive coordinator Greg Knapp said. “He didn't point fingers. They said he didn't flinch a bit.
“Those are hard situations to find in a quarterback evaluation process, and that was a good sign for us to see. Here's a guy that handled a little bit of pressure, under the New York media, and did a good job without saying, 'Maybe it's the play calling. Maybe it's this guy. Maybe I have young linemen. Maybe I have guys dropping passes.'
“Not once did that ever happen, and that's pretty hard to find in an evaluation process for a college draft pick.”
