DK Metcalf ‘overstepped boundaries’ leading Seahawks vocally, will now yield to Geno Smith

Last year’s noticeably more vocal DK Metcalf?

Not the true him. So he’s not doing that anymore.

New from Metcalf for 2023: He says he’s giving Geno Smith the stage to lead the Seahawks. Loudly.

Metcalf says “I overstepped some boundaries” on the field and in the locker room during the 2022 season. It was the 25-year-old wide receiver’s first year in the NFL without Russell Wilson as his quarterback, and without departed Bobby Wagner as Seattle’s co-captain and co-team leader.

It was also Metcalf’s first season after signing a $72 million contract extension last summer.

With Wilson long gone to Denver in a trade, Wagner back after a year away with the Rams and Smith entering his second season as Seattle’s starting QB coming off a record-setting Pro Bowl season, Metcalf says he will return to leading by example. He’s going back to not speaking so loudly around the team in 2023.

He’s going back, he says, to being himself.

“When you lose guys like Bobby and Russ, you try to force yourself into roles that you think that you can fulfill,” Metcalf said Wednesday. “That just wasn’t my role.”

Metcalf said he doesn’t believe his forced leadership affected his play last season. He had a career-high 90 catches, seven more than he had in his Pro Bowl season of 2020. He had his second 1,000-yard receiving season in three years. His six touchdown receptions were half his total from 2021 with Wilson.

He also had eight penalties against him last season. That was the most among all NFL wide receivers. Three were for unsportsmanlike conduct, fouls he’s had over recent seasons. In 2022, he was flagged for shoving San Francisco’s Dre Greenlaw after a play, for headbutting Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey, plus for rather tamely disputing a no-call by an official on contact by a Tampa Bay Buccaneer on a pass play to Metcalf in a November game in Munich.

He was fined more than $40,000 by the league last season for his unsportsmanlike fouls.

So being less vocal on the field can help Metcalf and the Seahawks in multiple ways this season.

Geno Smith’s time to lead

Metcalf says he is ceding the vocal leadership to Smith — as it should be.

“That’s Geno’s role, to be a vocal leader. He’s the quarterback. He’s the one calling the plays. He’s the one saying ‘Hut!’” Metcalf said.

For him now?

“It’s me just fitting into my role of just bringing up a young guy, just showing him what it takes to be a professional,” Metcalf said after the second practice of Seahawks minicamp. “Just things I’ve learned from guys like Bobby and Russ. Instead of just vocally saying it, just knowing, myself — and if they want to do it along with me, they can. And if not, they can find their way.”

Smith is entering his 11th season. But this is his first spring since 2014 he’s known he is his team’s full-time starter for the coming season. The last time was when he was entering his second year in the league with the New York Jets.

Metcalf gladly yielding a primary, vocal leadership role meshes with what Smith believes has been his biggest area of growth since this time last year.

“I think in every aspect of my life, every aspect of being a quarterback, being a leader (I’ve grown most),” Smith said. “Obviously it was kind of different for me this year than it was last year or 12 months ago, but I think the most growth for me is just perspective. Just gaining more perspective and just learning, growing, just trying to be better every single day.”

This all points to teammates likely voting Smith as the offense’s captain for the coming season, perhaps a co-captain with Lockett, the ninth-year veteran. Lockett was the offense’s captain last year.

Carroll sees this spring, summer and coming season as Smith’s time to assert himself as a leader.

“There’s nothing like that playtime that he just had,” Carroll said of Smith in March, the day the 32-year-old quarterback signed his three-year, $75 million contract extension that will greatly boost Smith’s leadership platform this year. “There’s nothing like coming back with DK, Tyler, the fellas, the tight ends, and running backs to put this thing together to the next level that’s out there for us.”

DK Metcalf’s new mentoring

Metcalf has many young guys to mentor is his own, quieter way this summer into fall and winter.

He is entering his fifth NFL season since Seattle traded up to select him from the University of Mississippi and his hometown of Oxford in the second round of the 2019 draft. Tyler Lockett is the only wide receiver on the Seahawks’ 90-man roster with more NFL experience.

Last month the Seahawks made Jaxon Smith-Njigba the 20th-overall pick in this year’s draft. With his smooth route running and sure hands that consistently catch passes away from his body and defenders, Smith-Njigba is on his way to immediately becoming — as in, the opening game Sept. 10 — the third, slot receiver inside Metcalf and Lockett, a role Seattle’s been seeking for years.

Wednesday, Smith-Njigba sprinted past Devon Witherspoon, the Seahawks’ new starting cornerback and fifth-overall pick in round one last month, down the left sideline on a straight go route. Smith’s perfect pass landed onto Smith-Njigba’s hands for a long touchdown.

The team has wide receiver Dee Eskridge, sidelined most of his first two seasons by injuries, entering his third year.

Cody Thompson is two years older than Metcalf. But Metcalf has played in 70 NFL games in his career. Thompson’s played in one.

Big, physical Dareke Young is entering his second season; the Seahawks drafted him in the seventh round last year out of Division-II Lenior-Rhyne. Former Washington State receiver Easop Winston is back after spending time on Seattle’s practice squad last season. Cade Johnson played in three games last season and is back on the team.

Seattle has four undrafted rookie wide receivers on the roster seven weeks before training camp begins: Matt Landers from Arkansas, John Hall from Division-II Northwood, Jake Bobo from UCLA and Tyjon Lindsey from Oregon State.

Metcalf said he’s doing with Smith-Njigba and all these younger Seahawks receivers what Wagner did with him when he was a rookie in 2019.

“He didn’t pretty much tell me anything. He just let me know — he told me that he was going to work out. I was either going to show up, or not,” Metcalf said.

“So that’s what I’m doing with the young guys, showing them what helped me my rookie year, to help them.”

That way, this year, is Metcalf’s more comfortable way of leading.

He now says last year, he was far outside his personality.

“I mean, I’d never done it,” he said. “So, it was fairly new to me. And I didn’t do it for a reason, leading up to that point.

“I’m a guy that works hard, and leads by example.

“I overstepped some boundaries (last year), where if I was just going to lead by example those boundaries are never touched.”