Heady RB drills, love for Tyler Lockett, Brandon Marshall, more from Seahawks training camp

“Keep the head out of the game!”

Those have been the buzzwords from Pete Carroll down through his assistants, quality-control coaches, heck, just about every Seahawks employee outside of the receptionists since spring minicamps and especially during this training camp at team headquarters.

Wednesday’s 14th practice of camp provided yet another example.

Running backs coach Chad Morton put his guys through a daily drill of ball carriers running through a gauntlet of six stand-up blocking pads arranged side by side in three pairs attached to a metal frame. The pads simulate defenders banging into the backs. There is a final, larger pad hanging by a vertical chain beyond the six other pads. Morton holds that bag then releases it one direction or the other as the running back gets to it, forcing him to react to the swinging bag with a sharp, final cut.

The object of the drill is to make decisive changes in direction and secure a strong hold on the ball in one arm--while keeping the head up during contact with those pads.

Chris Carson went first in this day’s hanging-bag drill. He showed why he’s number one, smoothly galloping through the pads with sharp cuts and bursts. His status as Seattle’s lead runner for the start of this regular season became cemented with rookie first-round pick Rashaad Penny’s broken finger and surgery in Philadelphia earlier in the day,

C.J. Prosise went through, then Morton made him go again. He didn’t keep his head up. Neither did undrafted rookie Gerald Holmes. He had to go again, too.

“Keep the head out of the game!” Morton yelled, not just to his players but to me and other media members standing maybe 10 yards away watching his drill.

The coaches’ motivation here is both for the safety of the players and the team pragmatics of reducing penalties. The Seahawks could sure use some of both.

They led the NFL with 148 enforced flags and 1,342 penalty yards lost last season. That was 10 penalties short of the league record set by Kansas City in 1998.

The most controversial rule change for this season, and the one seemingly most difficult for players to learn and officials to enforce, makes lowering the helmet for any reason, by anyone, a 15-yard penalty plus potential grounds for ejection from a game.

“It is a foul if a player lowers his head and initiates contact with the helmet, lowering the head to any part of the opponent’s body,” Alberto Riveron, the NFL’s senior vice president of officiating, says in the annual video presentation in rule changes and points of emphasis the league sent to each team to show its players early in training camp.

Like it or not--and many do not--the NFL is truly trying to take the head out of the game.

Players and teams already are howling through one full weekend of preseason games, complaining how this isn’t football. How tackles and hits that used to be as routine as yard lines in the game are now illegal.

But the fact is the players and teams that adjust their way of playing to the league’s initiative and obvious direction soonest will be penalized least, and thus will gain a distinct advantage. That will be especially true early in the season when officials and players adjust to the new rule.

Hence, Morton’s running-back drill each day with the swinging bag.

Heads up.

“I think this is a topic that you guys should let yourselves become more familiar with, because this is a big deal. It’s a big deal,” Carroll said. “The game is in transition right now, and it’s a really important transition. We started transitioning some time ago, really specifically, and fortunately for us it’s put us in position where we’re OK. We’re comfortable with the changes that are coming. There’s a couple of particular things that, coaching points, that have come up that the league has generated, that will be points of emphasis for us. And that’s about keeping your face up as much as possible. It’s just a tremendously clear emphasis of not using the top of your helmet, and you’re not using your helmet as a weapon.

“There was a time, I don’t know how many years ago it was, I was fighting it like crazy. I was fighting it just like an old dog. I didn’t want to see it coming, didn’t want to have it come our way. And I know I transitioned a while back and so as this has been coming to us now. I’m excited about the change for the game...

“I think we’ll be able to see a great product. It’s not going to change things drastically, at all. But we have to make these adaptations now, and so we’re making a big deal about it to our players.”