Head Coach Pete Carroll

(Opening…)  This is a really fun night to get started for us. It was such a huge night of opportunity for so many young guys. You never know what you're going to get on this first time out.  This is the first time we've tackled full speed, live, and that's what we save the games for; to do that. There was no question that our guys were going after it. The thing that I liked the most was the statement that the special teams made.  They want to do something. They want to be something and a big part of this team.  The effort on the coverage was just fantastic.  They had a blast. We know we have good kickers, we know how to place the ball and do all kinds of things. We kicked the ball short tonight in the kickoffs to have to cover them. It worked out great. Just, to be able to send that message first time out is really fun. We dedicate the night to the young guys, first game. That's how we like to do it. For some guys, it was more than a dedication; they played all night. Hats off to the guys that played so many plays tonight. It will be a little different next time out, but they really came through. A lot of good things. We ran for a lot of yards by the time the night was over.  We ran the ball a lot. There is a guy by the name of Xavier Turner that we will introduce you guys to. I just introduced him to the team just tonight, after the game.  He did a great job tonight.  Chad Morton coached him up during the game. I don't know if you saw the quarterbacks coached him up. He just got here yesterday. He did a fine job to help us out when we needed some help. Tonight is just about running and hitting. That's really what we wanted to see.   Across the board we were aggressive and we were tough. It showed up. That's a really good statement; we're underway, and here we go.  I kind of liked the way we did the substitution thing. Tonight's the first time we've done that, and it worked out fine. We had a mixed group on offense and a mixed group on defense. It will be different next week, as you'll see. I think the only guy that got injured tonight was George Fant who sprained his ankle tonight, so we'll just have to deal with that and see what that means.  That's unfortunate. Jazz Ferguson had a big night tonight. I thought he did a really good job of showing up.  It's what he's been doing in practice. He came through in a big way. It was really obvious that he was out there, they had to change coverage a little bit to take care of him, to keep him from dominating the game. I thought it was a really good first night for him.  I thought Paxton Lynch did a really good job. Paxton handled himself well; good tempo with the game, and ran the ball really well.  He's a big unit running, you saw that down by the goal line, that's a fantastic run for a quarterback to score down there. Just in general, he got out there and made some yards with his legs. I thought Gino played solid, too. We got real good play from the quarterbacks tonight to get us started. The negative, obviously, is the penalty thing, but did you see that I took the last one. That one was on me. That was like the 18th one of the night, or something like that, so you can blame me for that. But the rest of the penalties were really a mess. The sloppy hands on offense; it showed that we need a lot of work, but we can clean all that stuff up. The penalties have to go. I liked that we overcame a couple of them, we did a nice job to show it's the next play, and step up, and overcome it, and our guys did that, so it's good for our attitude. We have to clean it up.

(On Bo Scarbrough getting hurt …)  Yes, he got hit on his hand, and they needed to X-ray it. There is nothing broken. It's bruised, and so we just kept him out. 

(On what will happen with Geno Smith…)  I don't know how much detail you need on this one, but I do have a little bit on this one. He has a little cyst that he has to have removed on his knee.  It's not a serious injury, but it's bothering him. It could be 5-7 days, maybe 10 days. That's possible; we're hoping for that.  He'll get that done tomorrow.

(On whether they will need a quarterback for practice reps…) We'll see. We're already working on that.  There are options.

(On moving Marquise Blair around tonight…) He was scrambling a little bit tonight. You can see that he's a ball player. We loved what we saw from him tonight. We also learned a lot about him. He makes one play coming off the edge that it was not a blitz, but he took off and made a big hit in the backfield, and then he tried it again, and that's when they dumped the ball in the flat.  He has a lot to catch up on.  But, he showed you that he's a hitter, he's aggressive and tough. We can work with that now. It was exciting to see the plays he made. It will be interesting to see; the league did take a look at the hit and they ruled that it wasn't the kind that would get him kicked out of the game or whatever. We were very close to doing that exactly right. On that hit, so that you can learn as we go, that's a left shoulder hit for him coming in, and he chose to hit with his right shoulder, and so it places his helmet in position in question, and the officials thought; well, when we look at it again, you may have seen it a little better than us so far, but that was a right shoulder hit, and that's pretty darn good football. But to make it so that they can't the penalty on it, you hit with your left shoulder so your helmet is not in front of the receiver. We didn't quite get that done right, but it still was an excellent effort to do what we're trying and get the head out of our game. So, we'll get better and he'll learn, and we'll grow from that.

(On how Blair adjusted on the next one…) The first one was a good one, too. I didn't get as good a look at the second one so I don't know about that one to tell you. He'll learn. They're going to have to look out for him; he's a heck of a player. 

(On Ugo Amadi being very involved on special teams…) He was, he was all over the place tonight. He's played a lot of Nickel and some safety stuff, I think he got some work there. But his special teams work covering kicks and stuff was obvious. He and Marquise were down there. Neiko had an excellent game tonight, covering, leading us as the captain and all.  Really got us off to a great start on Teams.

(On Amadi as a returner…) He showed some quicks. He is going to be OK. He has a really good sense and awareness. You saw a little bit from Terry Wright, too. Both guys are real fast, and they have a little bit of shake to them, and we'll see how that fits.

(On the turnaround from Jazz Ferguson…)  He didn't get drafted, because there were reasons, and whatever, in his past. We're giving him a chance to see if he can be with us and play right and play well and do his thing. A big test was, the first time we see him, he is 10-12 pounds overweight. We made a big deal about that to him, and he came back and righted it. He's had an excellent camp going to this point. It's nice to see. He plays really big. He's 6'4" or something, and it shows. You can see the factor of the size that makes the guy somewhat unique. 

(On DK Metcalf's night…) Oh, just a hair from spectacular. He's made a couple of those catches before.  He clicked heels with the guy and almost got the first one, and the second one was just off his fingertips. You could see that he got behind him, just like we're hoping. He's a big threat.

(On any pass rush standouts…) I thought that Jacob Martin gave really good heat on his side, and Mingo at times, too. I thought that the edge guys were effective. We're just getting started there.

(On Paxton Lynch getting excited after his touchdown run…) He should be. That was a great play, man. He's big. You can see that he's a load. He knocked the heck out of that DB. He hit him with a really nice shot with his shoulder and put the ball in the end zone and all that. He was fired up. He lit up the whole team. He was really good.

(On Cody Barton…) I can't tell you. I didn't see enough. We only had him playing 16 plays tonight. We had a pitch count on him, because he hadn't practiced the last couple days, much. We'll go right back into full mode with him if he comes out OK. The next segment of practice is really important for him, but he's been nothing but special for us so far, so I would expect him to continue and get back on track.

(On the blitzing by the safeties…) I thought Kenny called a really nice game for the opener, to give our guys a chance. We want to see our guys and see who the blitzers are. We're trying to figure that out. So, he gave them a lot of shots and it was good. We sent a little bit of everybody tonight; it was good. Probably my favorite play of the night was DeShawn Shead making the sack in the end zone. It was a great blitz, a great call at the right time, and we hit it right. Burr-Kirven did a nice job of setting it up, and DeShawn just hit it perfectly and it was a huge play. It was great to see DeShawn do that.

(On Marquise Blair getting a quarterback hit, but it was a chunk play…) No, that's a mistake. That's just a mistake.

(On whether there is any word on the severity of George Fant's ankle sprain…) No. It's a legit ankle sprain.

(On Jazz Ferguson…) I really liked the way he played, and we were looking for him a couple of other times, too. We had a couple of other calls where we trying to feed it to him a bit. He had a really impressive start. He has been like that at practice as well, so it's a nice job by him.

Quarterback Paxton Lynch

(On how that felt…) "It felt great, it felt great. It felt good to have all that hard work pay off and I know that it felt good for a lot of those young guys too around me to go out there and get that first one off their chest. I was really glad to be a part of it with those guys."

(On if it meant anything to him that he was playing against Denver…) "No. I know that there was some talks that it was about that or it was about this and that. I love those guys, I have a lot of respect for a lot of guys on that team and they mean a lot to me. Outside of football, I respect them and love them, they're close friends to me. It had nothing to do with that. It was more to me, I had a lot to prove to myself tonight. It felt like I went out there and did that."

(On what he showed himself tonight…) "I wanted to show myself that all that hard work that I had put in had paid off. I had a long offseason basically. While everyone else was playing [last season] I was sitting at home, I wasn't playing, I was watching on T.V. and I was working, I was working hard. I was building myself up, believing in myself and trying to get back to where I was and trying to figure out how I could do that. I was excited when Seattle gave me the opportunity to come here. I'm glad that they gave me the opportunity to go out there and do what I did tonight."

(On if this preseason game felt different than others because of the year he took off from football…) "Yeah, there was a lot that went into this. Definitely having that year off played a big part of that. But I just wanted to go out there with my guys and win a football game and show those coaches that they can trust me if my number is ever called upon. I felt like I did a good job in that, but it's only the first preseason game and we still have three more."

(On what he thinks he did well tonight…) "I thought I did a good job of moving the ball, taking the completions when I had the opportunity to and taking the shots when they were there. I know there's obviously some things that I could have done better and I'm going to watch the film and see what that is and obviously talk to the coaches and see how I can get better from this performance. My main goal was to go out there and move the ball with these guys and win. And that's what we did, so I'm happy with that and I'm happy for those guys in that locker room and everyone else that put in that same work."

(On his connection with Jazz Ferguson…) "Me and Jazz have got a lot of work together. Especially this offseason, I know when we were all working together with [Russell Wilson], he got a bunch of guys together and Jazz was one of those guys that came out there. He's been willing to put in the work and that showed today and I'm proud of him for that and I'm happy for him because he deserves that. He deserves everything that happened to him tonight and I know that he's eager to get back to work."

(On if it's nice throwing to Jazz Ferguson since he's 6'5"...) "Yes, it makes my job a lot easier throwing to big targets like that. You kind of just put it in the area that they're in and they'll make the play for you. He did that tonight."

Wide Receiver Jazz Ferguson

(On his thoughts on his first NFL action) CenturyLink [Field] is even better than I thought it was going to be. It wasn't a packed-out game but it looked like a good fanbase.

(On the speed of the game) I mean pregame was my chance for me to take it all in, to be in the NFL to play this first NFL game. Once the ball got snapped for the very first time I knew it was time to get down to business.

(On his connection with quarterback Paxton Lynch) Oh, yeah. I mean I got a good bit of reps with Paxton, as well as Geno [Smith], as well as Russ [Russell Wilson]. Me and Paxton got a good relationship off the field also.

(On catching his first pass over another defender) It was great, to be honest with you. It was a play I constantly made in college, but I was happy to still be able to do it on this level.

Wide Receiver DK Metcalf

(On experiencing his first pre-season action) It was great. Just happy I got to be out there in front of the Seahawks fans and showcase what I can do.

(On what it felt to hear the fans cheer after his first catch) It just feels great, knowing I have the support of the 12s out there.

(On his two long passes) I mean, you know, just got to connect. We're going to go back and watch the film and correct our mistakes in our practice.

Running Back Rashaad Penny

(On the work load being what he wanted for this game) I mean, it just all depends on what they want. Just seeing where I'm at also. I think that was the most important thing tonight was just seeing where I was. I'm in better shape than I was last year. I feel more explosive, more faster this year. I just feel comfortable. The offensive line did an amazing job. It's only the first game, so you can't critique no one off the first game. We just keep going from here.

Cornerback DeShawn Shead

(On what it means to fit right in on this team and pick up where he left off) It means everything, just to see the hard work paying off, day in and day out this offseason I was just grinding everyday knowing that I needed to be somewhere and Seattle gave me the opportunity to come in and work out. It was the best feeling and to just come out here and play at CenturyLink one more time, and just show Seattle once again, that I can be the player that I know how to be. So, it's not what I did for them in the past, it's what I can show them now. My knee is healed, I feel great, I just want to show them I want to be on the team.

(On what transpired in order for him to get the safety) That was just everybody doing their job, I take no pride in that, it's people blitzing on the outside doing their job, being in the right place for that to open up for me so, when the defense works in sync like that, things like that happen, you get sacks, there were a couple more today. Also, the rookies, the rookies on offense, the defense as well, it was all impressive to see them play like that.

Wide Receiver Keenan Reynolds

(On Russell Wilson's improvement since Reynolds joined the team) Russ is at the top of his game, I don't know if I can make that type of judgement. I'm just excited that I get to play with a guy like him. As a former quarterback I watched him in college. He was one of the guys that kind of motivated me, being a smaller guy, defying the odds, and being able to do what he's been able to do since he's been here.

(On Russell Wilson speaking well about him) Yeah, it's very appreciated, when you got the number one guy in your corner. At the end of the day you still got to go out and execute, be tight on your assignments and make plays.

(On how he feels training camp and the first game have gone so far) I'm not really satisfied, to be honest with you. I'm actually, like I said, really hard on myself. I'm really hungry to get back out there for the next game and try to make more plays.

Safety Marquise Blair

(On how his first NFL game felt) First game, it was exciting. I like playing football, I like competing, even though I didn't compete, same thing.

(On what he could've done differently to avoid flags on big hits) I'm guessing just move, I don't know, move lower or whatever. But I've been working on it in practice.

(On how he felt about his sideline hit) I feel like they both were good to me, I felt good, I didn't put my helmet to helmet, I've been working on it since I left Utah, I've been working on moving my shoulder. I mean, I'm going full speed out there, it's whatever they see.

Linebacker Cody Barton

(On how he felt about his play tonight) The first play or two, all of the adrenaline was in me so it was over my head but, after that it slowed way down and it was like practice.

(On what Bobby was coaching him up on during the game) Just asking me what fits did I see out there, like run fits and just coaching me up for whatever play they were running.