Pete Carroll on Michael Bennett, Richard Sherman: “Sometimes guys can't hang with what's expected”

No, Pete Carroll says, Michael Bennett never was so overtly disrespectful in his reading habits inside Seahawks headquarters.

“Mike never brought a book to a meeting, I’ll tell you that,” the Seahawks’ coach said Monday.

That was when Carroll was asked about Sports Illustrated’s Greg Bishop relating to Seattle’s KIRO-AM radio last week what he said Bennett told him about the Pro Bowl defensive end’s 2017 with the team.

Bishop told 710 ESPN Seattle that Bennett said “he read books during team meetings last year because he’d heard Carroll say the same thing over and over for seven years.”

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On Monday, Carroll was asked during a ore-draft press conference at team headquarters about Bennett allegedly reading a book in meetings, and about also-gone Richard Sherman being defiant towards coaches on the sidelines during games in previous seasons.

The Seahawks traded Bennett to Philadelphia and waived Sherman, the three-time All-Pro cornerback, last month.

“The thing I would tell you about that is that we’ve been through a lot around here, we’ve grown tremendously together and all of that, and changes are inevitable,” Carroll said. “Sometimes, guys can’t hang with what’s expected, for one reason or another--their growth, their development and all of that.

“And the best thing I can tell you is, that they’re not here.”

It was a veiled yet still unusual rebuke from the sunny coach. He no doubt didn’t appreciate Bennett and Sherman saying Carroll’s messages and ways with the Seahawks had gotten stale last season, his eighth leading the team.

Last year was Seattle’s first without a playoff appearance since 2011.

Bishop’s description of what Bennett told him jibes with what Sherman said after the Seahawks waived him in March, and over the past year.

It sheds light on what may be other, inside-the-locker-room reasons why two cornerstones of the Seahawks’ most successful era ever are gone. Reasons besides the team’s salary-cap savings of $2.2 million for Bennett this year and $11 million for Sherman.

Carroll rebuilt a college football champion at USC with his unique ways before arriving to lead the Seahawks in 2010. In mid-March, days after the three-time All-Pro cornerback left Seattle following seven hugely successfuly years, Sherman said on the Uninterrupted podcast “The Tomahawk Show”: “A lot of us have been there six, seven, eight years, and his philosophy is more built for college. Four years. Guys rotate in, rotate out.

“And so we had kind of heard all his stories. We had kind of heard every story, every funny anecdote that he had. And, honestly, because he just recycles them.

“And they’re cool stories,” Sherman said. “They’re great for team chemistry and building, etcetera, etcetera. But we had literally heard them all. We could recite them before he even started to say them.”

In December 2016 Sherman berated Carroll and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell over calling a pass play from the 1-yard line in a win over the Los Angeles Rams. Sherman then talked dismissively about a team meeting Carroll called after that Rams incident.

Sherman described the meeting as yet another “Kumbaya” one by his sunny coach.

“It was good. We just talked about the mood of the team and guys coming together,” Sherman said in December 2016. “We have a Kumbaya meeting just about every year. So it was just the same thing. We don’t sing the song. But we just sit Indian style; Kumbaya.”

So this sense of stale has been with Sherman for at least two-plus years.