When they do get down time, the Seahawks players at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center, in between meetings, post practice, or at the end of their day at work, can be found shadow boxing with each other.
No, shadow boxing isn't two players practicing boxing moves, it's a game, that sometimes gets very competitive to the point of players like Devon Witherspoon running around the locker room screaming expletives, claiming he's the best at the game.
What started as a way to be competitive, pass the time and of course to earn bragging rights, became an indirect and non-football related source of connectedness for Seattle. If you've listened to a few Seahawks press conferences, chances are, you've heard head coach Mike Macdonald or even players talk about how, "connected" the team is. This is by design, not just happenstance. It was a point of emphasis for Macdonald before the 2025 season even started. It began after Seattle narrowly missed the playoffs in the head coach's first season.
"The first thing [is] that at the end of last season, watching teams in the playoffs, you're pissed off," Macdonald said earlier this season. "You're not in the playoffs, you're watching the games, you're mad. You should be in the game; you should be out there. You think you can beat all those teams. At least that's what happens to me. I don't know what happens to everybody else, but it was clear to me, or at least I felt like it was clear that those teams felt like they were connected, and they were tough. That's where we needed to get. That's the team that we want to be. That's the initial vision we had, but to help clear it up and have had a lot of people in our building feel the same way. It's been a fun process to try to get aligned and attack this thing together. We're heading in the right direction of the vision we want to create for our organization and that's exciting, but that's where it started."
That vision led to organized times for players to talk with each other as teammates, but also as humans. During the offseason, in OTAs, the coaches and staff planned, "walk and talks" where players would be put into random groups to get to know one another.
"You talk about the way you see things, and you get other people's point of view, and then it just carries on," 10-year veteran Jarran Reed said.
When asked about the team dynamic and what changed from the 2024 season to the 2025 season, Reed explained that it was the "walk and talks," and also said, "Believe it or not, the whole shadow box ordeal has become a thing in the locker room, literally everybody is doing it."
It was asked around the locker room who the "best" at shadow boxing is and there's pretty consistent answers for who the front runners of the game are Kenneth Walker III, Byron Murphy II, Derick Hall, Devon Witherspoon and Uchenna Nwosu.
While it was easy for players to pinpoint who the top shadow boxers are, it was more difficult to say who exactly brought the game to the locker room.
Both Walker and Murphy have been credited with bringing the game to the locker room this season, but if you ask Walker and Murphy, they will both tell you it wasn't them. Whether they did or didn't is not very important and no one seems to know who started it, but the "silly" game has made an impact on the team this season that is too large to quantify.
Here is a video of players shadow boxing after a practice back in September.
And here are the rules of shadow boxing (in the Seahawks locker room):
The game is played on a three-strike basis.
Two players stand opposite of each other facing one another. Player One starts and points in a direction, either, up, down, left or right. The goal for Player Two, who is not pointing, is to look in a direction that is not where Player One pointed. The movement should happen simultaneously, so there is guessing involved. Each player takes turns, back and forth, pointing in one of the four directions. If a player gets caught moving their head in the same direction as the player pointing, that is one strike. The player that "gets" the player moving their head now has to build upon their first movement. If Player Two was caught turning their head right, Player One now has to begin by pointing right and then either up, down or left. The back and forth between the players keeps going until one player catches the other player moving their head in the same direction they're pointing three consecutive times.
The game gets highly competitive and as Witherspoon said, "Whoever wants the smoke can get it."
And if you're no good at the game, Reed said, "If you lose a lot, and it's an easy win, you're a lick man."
Spoiler, you never want to be a "lick man."
But no one could have guessed that a game would play a huge role in adding to that feeling of connection. So, what exactly is shadow boxing and what does it have to do with football and interconnectedness?
When Reed said everybody was playing the game, it was no exaggeration. On any given day, players could be found paired up standing face to face, pointing either up, down, left or right, trying to get the player opposite of them to look in the same direction as they point. These pairs of players are made up of players from position groups that you wouldn't normally see interacting with each other.
"I feel like in regular locker rooms, usually DB's and O-linemen would not speak," Kenneth Walker III said. "Just like, nobody would [talk]. But then, with shadow boxing, everybody be playing everybody, no matter who it is. So, I feel like that brought us closer as a team, and on Sundays, that's your brother and he got your back, and you just play better like that."
Eric Saubert, who has played for seven different organizations outside of the Seahawks said, "I'll say this, I heard this from another vet on the team, you meet young guys that you would normally never talk to just through the competition of something as silly shadowboxing, position groups are intermingling, and that's what you're looking for in a team. I'm not saying that's why we're doing as well as we are, but man, something as little as that can go such a long way and you don't even realize it."
A lot of the position groups typically stick with each other. They have meetings together. Their lockers are near one another in the locker room and often can be seen mingling amongst each other. But the game forces the players out of that.
"
"It's all fun and games, but it has a deeper meaning than what it really is," linebacker Derick Hall said.
He added, "I think it's a small thing, but when you're shadow boxing an offensive lineman, when you're shadow boxing a running back, when you're shadow boxing a coach, coaches be shadow boxing sometimes. I think all that connectivity, that camaraderie, the love and passion, that may lead to a conversation with someone where you getting to know a guy better… It brings guys together."
Unless the player was picked up during free agency earlier this year, is a rookie or was signed to the roster or practice squad at some point, most of the players on the team have been together for more than just this season, but many have expressed how different the team feels this season.
"I feel like from last year to this year, everybody really knows each other more and just have better relationships with one another," Murphy said. "And then I feel like it also helps on the field, too with our success, the success we've been having."
And how exactly does it help on the field? Murphy said, "It really helps with communication because [in] shadow boxing, you can go teams. You can try to tell your teammate, 'He's going this way, he's going that way.' Just trying to predict the other guy's movement. It helps a lot. Shadow boxing also helps too for defensive linemen with reaction time and with hands, because we make moves with our hands and everything while playing."
Now whether or not there's a direct correlation between shadow boxing and on-field performance, Murphy's testimony will speak for itself, but the impact of the game, regardless, can't be understated.
"The connection and the positivity and the love we have for one another here is unmatched," Hall said. "I've never seen it before. And I told somebody else I thought I really knew what a connection was until [this season]."
Linebacker Uchenna Nwosu said, "This is the first time I've really been this close in the locker room before."
It seems that Macdonald's goal of being a "connected," and "tough" team to get to the playoffs has almost begun to pay off, even if it was through the help of an unsuspecting game of shadow boxing.
"We just found something to pass time, really, before we go to meetings," Nwosu said. "And it just turned into something a little bigger."
Outside of that, Macdonald and his staff, along with the players, have built something in the building that is hard to deny. So much so, that players are comparing the camaraderie in the locker room to their own college football national championship winning team that they were a part of.
"When I was at University of Alabama, on our National Championship team. I'm getting the same vibes right now," Reed, who won a National Championship with Alabama in 2015, said. "Just how we are with each other. We spend time with each other outside, outside the locker room. We come in here, we're like a close group, like a band of brothers, and we all play off each other."
While the Seahawks have not clinched a playoff spot, as of now, they are in control of whether they see the post season this year. And they're doing it all while being a team who plays for the player next to him.
"Everybody is just selfless," Murphy said. "We're not just playing for ourselves. We're playing for one another, each man on the field, on the team. That's a good thing to have."
Check out photos of the Seahawks 53-man active roster for the 2025 season.
This is a 2025 photo of DeMarcus Lawrence of the Seattle Seahawks NFL football team. This image reflects the Seattle Seahawks active roster as of June 9, 2025 when this image was taken. (AP Photo)
Seahawks defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence (0)
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Seahawks quarterback Drew Lock (2)
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Seahawks safety Nick Emmanwori (3)
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Seahawks punter Michael Dickson (4)
Seahawks kicker Jason Myers (5).
Seahawks kicker Jason Myers (5)
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Seahawks quarterback Jalen Milroe (6)
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Seahawks linebacker Uchenna Nwosu (7)
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Seahawks safety Coby Bryant (8)
Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9)
Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9)
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Seahawks wide receiver Cooper Kupp (10)
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Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba (11)
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Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones IV (13)
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Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold (14)
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Seahawks wide receiver Jake Bobo (19)
20 FS Julian Love is in his fifth season in the NFL and his first season with the Seahawks.
20- S Julian Love (2023-Present)
This is a 2025 photo of Devon Witherspoon of the Seattle Seahawks NFL football team. This image reflects the Seattle Seahawks active roster as of June 9, 2025 when this image was taken. (AP Photo)
Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon (21)
Seahawks wide receiver Rashid Shaheed (22)
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Seahawks running back Zach Charbonnet (26)
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Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen (27)
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Seahawks cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett (28)
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Seahawks cornerback Josh Jobe (29)
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Seahawks fullback Brady Russell (38)
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Seahawks safety Ty Okada (39)
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Seahawks fullback Robbie Ouzts (40)
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Seahawks long snapper Chris Stoll (41)
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Seahawks linebacker Drake Thomas (42)
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Seahawks linebacker Tyrice Knight (48)
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Seahawks linebacker Jared Ivey (51)
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Seahawks linebacker Patrick O'Connell (52)
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Seahawks linebacker Boye Mafe (53)
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Seahawks center Olu Oluwatimi (55)
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Seahawks linebacker Connor O'Toole (57)
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Seahawks linebacker Derick Hall (58)
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Seahawks center Jalen Sundell (61)
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Seahawks guard Christian Haynes (64)
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Seahawks tackle Charles Cross (67)
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Seahawks tackle Abraham Lucas (72)
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Seahawks tackle Josh Jones (74)
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Seahawks guard Anthony Bradford (75)
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Seahawks offensive lineman Mason Richman (78)
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Seahawks tight end Eric Saubert (81)
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Seahawks wide receiver Cody White (82)
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Seahawks tight end AJ Barner (88)
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Signed tight end Nick Kallerup (89) on May 2, 2025.
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Seahawks defensive tackle Jarran Reed (90)
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Seahawks defensive tackle Byron Murphy II (91)
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Seahawks defensive end Mike Morris (94)
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Seahawks nose tackle Brandon Pili (95)
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Seahawks defensive tackle Rylie Mills (98)
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Seahawks defensive end Leonard Williams (99)
