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RENTON Steve Largent Color Rush Jersey , Wash. (AP)Shaquem Griffin had walked away from his cellphone, on his way to use the restroom, when it buzzed. His twin brother, Shaquill, recognized the 425 area code that flashed on the screen and started charging after his brother.”I think I was more scared of him tackling me in the bathroom and not knowing what was happening than anything,” Shaquem said.What already was the feel-good story of the NFL draft got an even better storybook ending on Saturday when the Central Florida star linebacker whose left hand was amputated when he was child was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the fifth round.The phone call from Seattle general manager John Schneider set off a wild celebration within the Griffin family , which had gathered at a hotel in the Dallas area after Shaquem spent the first two days at the draft in Arlington, Texas, waiting for a phone call that never came. It was the Seahawks – the team that showed the most interest in Griffin from the start – who gave Shaquem the chance at his professional aspirations and with it a chance to be reunited with his brother.Shaquill, who was a third-round pick by the Seahawks in 2017, became a starter in his rookie season. The brothers played together throughout their youth and at UCF before Shaquill entered the NFL a year earlier.”I couldn’t ask for anything (else) in the world than the opportunity to be back with him,” Shaquem said.Added Shaquill: ”I was going to be happy no matter what team that gave him the opportunity. At the end of the day that’s all I wanted for him: for a team to give him a shot and give him an opportunity and take a chance on someone that is great.”For Seattle coach Pete Carroll what stuck out as the interview the Seahawks conducted with Griffin at the scouting combine.”He was just so expressive and so open to tell his story and tell what this opportunity meant to him in a way that moved us all,” Carroll said. ”Just like those of you that have watched him he’s an extraordinary young man. He has a lot of messaging that he’s going to stand strong with and we’re all going to grow from I think. And aside from that he’s a really good football player.”Griffin was the player everyone was hoping would get a shot in the NFL after being a star at UCF despite playing with just one hand. He was the American Athletic Conference defensive player of the year in 2016 and the MVP of UCF’s Peach Bowl victory against Auburn last season when the Knights went 13-0.A groundswell of support got him an invitation to the scouting combine in Indianapolis, where he stunned onlookers by bench-pressing 225 pounds a staggering 20 times with a prosthetic left hand and then covered the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds. The performance at the combine turned Shaquem into a star, but it didn’t guarantee a team would give him a shot.”It’s just so much. I’m extremely blessed Patrick Kerney Color Rush Jersey ,” Shaquem said. ”It definitely was a tough three days. A lot of anxiety these few days, but I am ready to get up there and go to work and start something great.”Shaquem’s position in the NFL is still to be determined. He was a force as an outside linebacker rushing off the edge at UCF, but at 6-foot and 227 pounds with blazing speed, he could transition to being the bigger safety Carroll likes to have on his defense. Carroll said the intent is to start Griffin at weakside linebacker and let him use his speed in different areas on the field.Griffin’s college coach Scott Frost tweeted ”About time,” after the pick was made. Seattle general manager John Schneider said there was no extra pressure felt to draft Shaquem with his brother already on the roster.”I think the thing that stood out to me was somebody told me they had sat down with (Shaquem) for five minutes and they gained the same inspiration from him as they did the first time they were able to sit down with John Wooden,” Schneider said.Griffin was waiting patiently in the green room through the first two days of the draft. He chose to spend the last day with his family at a nearby hotel watching. He sat through the entire fourth round without getting a call, but three picks into the fifth round the Seahawks called.”It was up and down. The excitement, it’s crazy because you’re around so many great guys in that setting and you’re in the green room and you’re moving around and seeing how the anxiety is building up. Sometimes the pressure like that can break you and it is a lot of pressure,” Shaquem said. ”But I knew how it was going to go. I knew I wasn’t going to be a first-round pick or anything like that. It was me making sure I was enjoying the moment that I was here in Dallas.”— The Seattle Seahawks were the “DVOA Champions” from 2012 to 2015, a remarkable feat if you actually care about DVOA. Which most of us here at Field Gulls have and still do for years, and not just when they’re in first place. The Seahawks slipped to 11th in 2016 and 14th in 2017, partly due to shortcomings on offense, but also thanks to injuries and inconsistencies on defense that made them much more average than their previously dominant days. The “bad” news is that Seattle didn’t do much better in 2018 — they finish the season ranked 12th overall — but the good news is that they did so in the season after parting ways with so many players thought to be key to their success.We don’t need to run through that list of names once again, you know it already, but the fact that the Seahawks are 10-6 and back in the playoffs Germain Ifedi Color Rush Jersey , as well as their number 12 ranking in DVOA, says quite a bit about the job done by Pete Carroll and John Schneider to keep the franchise competitive while they away for more growth and development from first and second-year starters.Not that work isn’t left to be done in all three phases of the game.Seattle ranked ninth on offense, 14th on defense, and 24th on special teams. A big reason for their low ranking on special teams came way of their punting debacle against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 17, as Michael Dickson had two kicks blocked, but the issues of course run deeper than that. The traditional stats tell one story and DVOA is only meant to tell another. Neither is good enough on its own, both are more powerful when used together, and of course with non-stat-driven devices.Offensively, the Seahawks ranked sixth in passing and seventh in rushing. This ranking is much more telling of Russell Wilson’s highly efficient season than Seattle’s ranking of 27th in yards and 32nd in attempts, which means nothing other than a story about Brian Schottenheimer and Carroll’s game plan for the offense. Wilson set a franchise record for touchdowns (35) while attempting just 427 passes. They didn’t ask him to throw it 600 times and they didn’t want to take many shots other than the ones that would help them gain first downs and touchdowns. Wilson finished the season 11th in DYAR and 10th in DVOA.Meanwhile, Tyler Lockett finished with the highest DVOA for a receiver ever. He also edged out DeAndre Hopkins and Michael Thomas for the 2018 crown at DYAR. The second-highest DVOA recorded this season by a WR, though he didn’t have enough targets to qualify, was the 58% by Seattle receiver Jaron Brown.It doesn’t tell you that they were the best receivers, just that targets to them by Wilson were extremely good at gaining important first downs and touchdowns. En total those two players were targeted 89 times and scored 15 touchdowns with 46 first downs.On the ground, the Seahawks were second in attempts and first in rushing yards Marshawn Lynch Color Rush Jersey , plus fifth in yards per carry. Chris Carson had 1,151 yards and nine touchdowns. All three lead backs averaged at least 4.6 yards per carry, plus 5.6 for Wilson. Carson was 13th in DYAR and 17th in DVOA, with 51% success rate, which ranked 15th among qualified backs. For the record, that was still a better success rate than Ezekiel Elliott, Phillip Lindsay, Derrick Henry, and Joe Mixon.This is a vast improvement from 2017, when Eddie Lacy and Thomas Rawls finished as the two of the three worst-rated backs in the entire NFL by DVOA, and two of the five worst by DYAR despite getting less than 100 carries each. Another important aspect is strength of schedule, and FootballOutsiders has Seattle’s offense as facing basically a league-average schedule of defenses. By contrast, the New Orleans Saints finished with the second-easiest. (Yes, it is opponent adjusted, otherwise advanced stats like these ... wouldn’t really exist?)Defensively Earl Thomas III Color Rush Jersey , the team was average, ranking 14th by DVOA and 19th by weighted DVOA as they struggled more without free safety Earl Thomas as the year went on. They were 13th against the pass and 17th against the run. Their strength of schedule also ranked 16th. In the passing game, the Seahawks were ranked just 25th against number one receivers and 20th against number two receivers, while doing better against all other receivers, tight ends, and backs.They did their best pass defense up the middle, which is where I hear Bobby Wagner lives.Traditional stats back this up mostly, as Seattle ranked 11th in points allowed and 16th in yards allowed. They were 17th in net yards per pass attempt allowed, but 30th in yards per carry allowed. Part of that struggle can probably be attributed to the issues at outside linebacker with injuries to K.J. Wright and Mychal Kendricks, though other factors certainly come into play. Wright is now healthy and looks to start against the Cowboys in the wild card round.Despite a Pro Bowl season by Michael Dickson, the Seahawks finished below average in the punting game thanks to Sunday’s performance against Arizona. The only place they were decent by the end of the year’s total: kickoff returns, which almost don’t matter anymore thanks to the new kickoff rules.Some are calling for a chance at special teams coordinator with Brian Schneider. Carroll made moves last year with his coaches, will he do the same in 2019?