Former Seattle Seahawks running backs coach Sherman Smith said the team lacked the necessary hunger to reach the Super Bowl last season. Smith said it will be up to the players to regain that hunger if they want to reach the Super Bowl in 2018.
The Seahawks running game was inconsistent throughout the 2016 season, and Smith acknowledged that was part of the Seahawks overall inconsistency. However, a big contributor to the running game woes was the weak performance of the offensive line, a young and inexperience unit that never found its rhythm during the season.
Smith said he told head coach Pete Carroll the team wasn’t as hungry in 2016 as it has been in 2012. Smith said the team’s recent success of reaching back-to-back Super Bowls, players who have become stars and signed big contracts seems to have eroded some the hunger that existed four years ago.
“Guys aren’t as hungry. They were hungry, but sometimes weren’t as hungry as we were. Players have got to have a hunger. They’re hungry for a lot of stuff, but we’ve got to get that hunger that we had when we weren’t winning,” Smith told radio station 710 ESPN in Seattle. “And how do you get that back when you’ve won and you’ve got the big contracts and you’ve got the endorsements and everybody loves you? How do you get that back? I think there’s only so much that Pete can do. But the players themselves, they’ve got to do some things themselves. I give a lot of the responsibility to the players.”
Smith, the Seahawks running backs coach for the past seven seasons, won’t be returning to the Seahawks in 2017. Smith said Carroll wanted to make a change and informed Smith that he was being replaced by Chad Morton, the assistant running backs coach in 2016.
Smith said Carroll’s decision to replace him was a surprise.
“I thought I would be the one more or less leading the conversation – either saying I hadn’t decided to retire yet or I’m going to coach another year. But I didn’t think it would be him saying, ‘I want to make a change,’ ” Smith said.
Smith said Carroll offered him a different role on the team, but the 62-year-old Smith, who said he was seriously considering retiring, declined the position and decided to retire.
“I think Coach just wants more of that run-around type of energy that I can’t give,” Smith said. “Heck, I’m 62 years old. I don’t run around like I did when I was 32. So I think that was important to him, and that’s where he went. I may not like it, but that’s his decision, and I’m fine with it.”
— Geoffrey C. Arnold | @geoffreyCarnold
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