RENTON, Wash. -- Seattle Seahawks running backs coach Sherman Smith insists that this time, there really is a change in Christine Michael.
During Michael's first stint with the Seahawks, the same questions were asked every summer: Is he willing to put in the work to be great? Will this be the year he finally gets it?
Last September, the Seahawks decided they were ready to pull the plug on the Michael experiment. He had spent two years with the team but was never able to earn the trust of the coaching staff. The Seahawks preferred their other options and traded Michael to the Dallas Cowboys for a seventh-round pick.
His run there ended in November when the team released him. The Washington Redskins signed Michael to their practice squad, but when the Seahawks suffered injuries at running back late in the season, they decided to bring him back.
"He was grateful to get another chance because he thought when the Redskins released him that his career was over with," Smith said. "He thought he was going back to Texas. And he just came back and said, ‘You know what? I had a sense of entitlement. I’ve just learned that I’ve got to mature and I’ve got to do better.’ He came in last year and earned a world of trust from myself and the rest of the coaches and the players."
This summer, with Thomas Rawls on the PUP list and C.J. Prosise and Zac Brooks dealing with hamstring injuries, Michael has been the first running back on the field with the starters every day at practice, with fifth-round pick Alex Collins rotating in.
Asked if it was frustrating to coach Michael during his first stint in Seattle, Smith said, "That is the truth. Oh, it was frustrating. And I told him that. I said, ‘Man, it’s not about your physical talent. That’s what’s frustrating for me and for everyone else. We see what you can do. We made no mistake in drafting you because what we saw on film, you can do. It’s now doing the other things that it takes.'"
With Michael, it's not just about running the ball. It's about trusting that he knows his assignments. For example, in the past when Smith would call on Michael during a meeting and ask him to explain his role in a specific protection scheme, the running back didn't consistently have the answer. But that hasn't been the case since Michael returned to the Seahawks, Smith said.
In three regular-season games with the Seahawks at the end of last year, Michael ran for 192 yards and averaged 4.92 YPC. He averaged 3.41 yards after contact, which was the best of any back during that span according to ESPN Stats & Information.
Pete Carroll said that Rawls is day-to-day and should be ready for the regular season. If he looks close to being the same guy he was as a rookie, Rawls is going to be the primary ball carrier. But if he has a setback or needs time to get back to 100 percent, the Seahawks are more confident that Michael can be trusted to play a significant role.
The team likes what it has seen from Collins. And Prosise will be penciled in as the third-down back once he gets healthy. As always, the backs will compete for playing time in the preseason. And while Michael still has plenty to prove, there seems to be more substance behind the optimism than there was in previous years.
"He’s just taking it seriously," Smith said. "He is everything we hoped he would be when we drafted him a few years ago."
