A year ago, the Seahawks made a roster move that seemed curious to a lot of people at the time.
Heading into Week 12 of the 2017 season, the Seahawks promoted rookie receiver David Moore from the practice squad, a little-known player from a little-known Division II school, East Central University in Oklahoma. To make room for Moore, the Seahawks released Dwight Freeney, a veteran pass-rusher who might end up in the Hall of Fame someday.
At the time, receiver depth wasn't a real need, but as Seahawks coach Pete Carroll acknowledged at the time, there was concern about losing Moore to another team wanting to add him to its roster.
A year later, Seahawks fans and the rest of the NFL are seeing why the Seahawks made sure they didn't lose Moore late last season even though he was active for only one of the final five games. In his second season, Moore, Seattle's penultimate pick in the 2017 draft, going 23 spots ahead of starting running back Chris Carson—yes, the Seahawks did pretty well in the seventh round last year—has solidified himself as Seattle's No. 3 receiver behind Doug Baldwin and Tyler Lockett. Through 11 games, Moore is second on the team in receiving yards (413) and receiving touchdowns (5), and his 18.8 yard-per-catch average is second in the league among pass catchers averaging at least two catches per game.
And Moore has not only been making big catches, but making them in big moments, none more significant than when he hauled in a 35-yard game-tying touchdown on fourth-and-3 late in last week's win in Carolina.
Asked if he was surprised to see Moore come up with such a critical catch, Baldwin said, "Not at all. He's a savage, he does that every day in practice, in games when he gets his opportunities. He's a baller."
It has been quite a rise for Moore, who was lightly recruited out of Gainesville, Texas, leading to him playing at East Central. Moore knew he was on NFL teams' radars, including Seattle's having met with Seahawks southwest area scout Aaron Hineline, but he wasn't really expecting to hear his name called in the draft. When Moore was drafted, it was nearly impossible to track down a photo from his college days—apparently wire services don't shoot a lot of East Central games—and it seemed his school wasn't expecting Moore to be drafted either, because when contacted by the Seahawks that Saturday about getting a photo, East Central responded saying they'd try to come up with something on Monday. Then after spending most of his rookie year on the practice squad, Moore not only made the roster to start this season, he became a key part of Seattle's offense.
"I think about it, I think about it a lot," Moore said of how far he has come in a short time. "It's just a big blessing, I just thank the lord. I'm just trying to live day-by-day and keep it going."
Having played at a Division-II school, Moore came to Seattle a little bit raw—Carroll compared Moore in that regard to Golden Tate, who wasn't fully polished as a receiver out of college in part because he played baseball and football at Notre Dame—but the Seahawks saw enough from a physical standpoint to know they wanted Moore in Seattle.
"He's a really cool kid, very tough, very aggressive," general manager John Schneider said after the Seahawks drafted Moore. "He's like 222 pounds, running 4.43 (40-yard dash). Maybe 4.38, depends on the watch… He is a strapped up guy, now. Really good looking, physically."
Carroll joked that when scouting Moore, "The first thing I remember is the film was really grainy, it was."
Carroll then added, "He was really good after the catch. Really good running in space and he looked like he was stronger than the other guys he was playing with. He's a very strong player. He doesn't look like a big guy but he weighs 216 (pounds) or something. He's not jostled or knocked around very easily. He's really physical and so that's why you've seen him on the balls up the sidelines and with guys hanging on him. He doesn't have any problem making those plays and going up, he's really strong too. We didn't know how much that would carry over because he looked like he was bigger than the guys he was playing with, but he's just a strong dude and he makes his plays. He also demonstrated really natural instincts on how to play that ball, that last (touchdown vs. Carolina), to not show the ball was coming and delay the opportunity to let the guy that's covering him know what's going on. That's big-time savvy and he pulled it off great."
What Carroll referenced about Moore's savvy on the touchdown catch in Carolina shouldn't be overlooked. One reason he was able to make the catch despite a cornerback being all over him is that Moore had "late hands" on the catch, meaning he didn't reach up for the ball early, and as a result the corner didn't know the ball was coming.
"That's extremely difficult," Baldwin said. "I think the person who probably showed him the most of how to do that was Paul Richardson when he was here. Paul was extremely talented at late hands catches. David has kind of seen how that could help him, and he has the ability to do it. Not everybody has the ability to do it, and David has really worked hard at it and he's obviously extremely successful. I'm not surprised at his success when he's in those situations and doing it because he's worked so hard at it."
Added Carroll, "Guys kind of either have that or they don't—that special awareness. They can learn that to some degree, but David is just a natural ballplayer. It's like we talk about with Tyler, just great instincts so they just pop up—for those guys that are really good at it—at the right times. They know when to use what they've got and sometimes that's getting up off their feet and sometimes that's holding and making space. It's going up and getting the ball and taking it away. You've seen David take the ball away from the defenders at times. That's just—it's stuff that they work on and they practice it, but some guys, they already know. Sometimes, the guys like that, when they see examples of things from other people and from other players, they can copy stuff because they can just make sense of it. Other players don't and they can't, so David's a very special athlete."
Seattle players will wear customized cleats designed by local artists during Week 13 of the 2018 NFL season recognizing causes that are personal to each player. Check out the Seahawks' kicks and learn more about the causes they have chosen to represent.
WR Jaron Brown
Cause: Make-A-Wish
Brown: "While it may be popular, I chose Make-A-Wish because I feel like it's very important what they are doing for the kids. The theme I chose was like 'Dreamers', which is just to show the kids that the sky is the limit."
Artist: A.CODD
LB Austin Calitro
Cause: Breast Cancer Awareness & Mental Illness Awareness
Calitro: "My sister has a mental illness and my grandmother has breast cancer so I thought this game would be good to dedicate to them."
Artist: CusTheArtist
RB Chris Carson
Cause: Homelessness, ROOTS Young Adult Shelter
Carson: "I wanted to support ending homelessness, so I felt like that would be a good way to bring it out, by using my cleats."
Artist: CusTheArtist
DE Frank Clark
Cause: Bladder Cancer Awareness
Clark: "My cause is bladder cancer. This cause is important to me because someone I call, really one of the cornerstones of our family, one of the most important people in my life that I have ever come across- not God-but I look at her like my savior, my grandmother Valerie. Being able to represent her in a way, using this platform to bring awareness to the cause of bladder cancer as I continue to do, what better way to celebrate her. I want to bring awareness to it because I feel I have the perfect platform to do so. For something that can take lives, there should always be some type of knowledge, some sort of note. It should be talked about more. It took my grandmother's life. I receive many DMs or tweets from people that were affected the same way and I feel for them the same way that I felt when I lost mine. It needs to have attention brought to it, and the one thing I'm going to continue to do as long as we have My Cause, My Cleats you'll continue to see purple and gold representing bladder cancer, the bladder cancer ribbon. Also, purple being my grandmother's favorite color, it just so happened to fall into that. So, you'll continue to see who I'm representing and why I'm representing year to year as long as God allows me to play this sport and then you'll see me representing after the fact. We just have to keep on bringing awareness to it."
Artist: CusTheArtist
CB Justin Coleman
Cause: Diabetes Awareness
Coleman: "I really chose it because diabetes runs in my family. My grandmother, my dad and a few other family members all had diabetes and a couple of them passed away from it. The main reason I chose it was to help find a way to get rid of it and minimize diabetes."
Artist: KSHAFFSTALL KICKS
RB Mike Davis
Cause: Prostate Cancer Awareness
Davis: "My cause is prostate cancer. I chose prostate cancer because a little over a year ago my dad told me that he has prostate cancer. I'm hoping that people will go and get scanned early. When you get scanned early and they say it's in the early stages there is a greater chance of them catching it before it spread to their bones. So I'm hoping that people will go and get scanned and make sure they don't have cancer and if they do, they can catch it right away."
Artist: KENDALL ROQUE
TE Ed Dickson
Cause: Boys & Girls Club of Emerald Valley
Dickson: "I've been dealing with them for a long time. The Boys & Girls Club, I used to go there a lot when I was in college and we did a lot of hands-on work so it's easy to take over that foundation and I've been dealing with them for a long time. We actually host an event every year to raise about $100,000 a year to keep their doors open. It's kind of a way that I can affect 275 kids that all in one spot, so that's the reason I'm supporting it – it's kind of special to my heart."
T George Fant
Cause: Special Olympics Kentucky
Fant: "I grew up in a household where my mom always worked with kids who had special needs. I always had people that lived in my house with special needs my whole life, so it's always been close to me. I know a lot of people personally who go through it every day and it's just something I wanted to bring light to."
Artist: D-ROSS
CB Tre Flowers
Cause: Alzheimer's & Dementia Awareness
Flowers: "Both of my grandparents have it and just growing up around it, I wanted to help make people more aware."
Artist: D-ROSS
G D.J. Fluker
Cause: I'm A Father F1rst
Fluker: "I chose it because I think it's always important to represent being a father. That's a big problem today, so that's what I picked."
Artist: D-ROSS
DE Rasheem Green
Cause: SKIP (Save Kids of Incarcerated Parents)
Green: "I chose SKIP because the program is for kids who have parents in prison and I grew up with my dad in prison for the first twelve years of my life, so that was something I could relate to so that's why I chose it."
Artist: SEAN VERGARA
CB Shaquill Griffin & LB Shaquem Griffin
Cause: St. Pete Nitro Track Club
Shaquill: "It was inspiring to do our own thing. We notice how important it was to others that we created it (St. Pete's Nitro). Maybe this is our calling. Maybe we should do more for the community, for the city, for kids, for people. Ever since then, we've always found a way to give back to others."
Shaquem: "The reason for 'My Cause, My Cleats' is because I wanted to create something that can always give back to the community. It was never about me, it was never about running track – I think my cause and picking St. Pete Nitro was something that was more than just sports. It was a foundation that created a home for those who felt like they didn't have one."
QB Brett Hundley
Cause: Hundley Hero Foundation (epilepsy & childhood cancer)
Hundley: "It's something my wife and I started when we first wanted to enter the non-profit world. The broader thought of the Hundley Hero Foundation is everyone can be a hero in the community no matter if it's one person. Giving back to the community is the biggest thing, but also doing other things within that like epilepsy. Hopefully soon, we'll get into autism."
Artist: A.CODD
DE Branden Jackson
Cause: American Diabetes Association
Jackson: "I picked it for my grandmother who has diabetes. I like to try to raise awareness for her because she's everything that I am. It's kind of a token of gratitude to raise awareness for a lot of people who are living with the disease."
Artist: KSHAFFSTALL KICKS
K Sebastian Janikowski
Cause: Crohn's & Colitis Foundation
Janikowski: "This is important to me and to (my wife Lori) for people to understand more about Crohn's. Because a lot of people keep it to themselves, they don't talk about it because they're embarrassed to talk about it, they don't want people to know. I think it's a great cause, and that's why we're supporting it."
Artist: KENDALL ROQUE
DE Quinton Jefferson
Cause: Jordan McNair Foundation & Gun Violence Prevention
Jefferson: "The first cause is Jordan McNair (University of Maryland football player who passed during training), bringing awareness to his foundation, and the whole situation so people don't forget about him. That's one cause. My second cause is about gun violence, especially in the African American community. I'm going to have a list of all the people I know personally who have been killed by gun violence. It's just eye-opening, because it's like 30 people on there, people I personally know who have been killed. It's eye-opening, so I just want to bring awareness, this has to stop."
Artist: POSSI
DE Dion Jordan
Cause: Special Olympics Washington
Jordan: "My cause is Special Olympics Unified Washington. I chose the Special Olympics because I had the chance to go this summer here at the University of Washington and watch the flag football team compete. It was my first time at a Special Olympics event, and I enjoyed it. I had one of the best times watching the athletes go out there and compete. I just continued to go back because I enjoyed watching these guys the way they loved on each other regardless of what team they were playing against, and the level of competition that I seen while I was there. I think they enjoyed it a lot because they saw a professional football player come and show them love and football. It was big for me as well to watch them go out there and compete. The biggest thing that resonated with me was the love that they have for each other. These guys, they compete very, very, very, very hard but at the same time they encourage each other, and I think that's the biggest thing about sports. You know it is about winning and losing but at the end of the day you are out there with people that have worked as hard as you have even on the other team and at the end of the day you want people to succeed and excel and that's what I noticed. The most rewarding part of it all was watching those guys love on each other. Personally, I feel like they are the toughest athletes on the planet. To overcome everything that has been stacked against you to go out there and make it. Not only are you competing but they are doing it with people that love and care for you. For me that was the biggest thing that I took from the event. It was very much more rewarding for myself. Mainly because at this level, at the professional level it's easy to lose why you are doing what you are doing because they're a lot of things that come with it. But what it boils down to it, we all started this game because we love to play this sport and it reminded me of that."
Artist: CusTheArtist
WR Tyler Lockett
Cause; Light It Up Foundation
Lockett: "I chose the Light It Up Foundation because it's my foundation and the thing that I love about my foundation is that it talks about everybody deserving a chance to shine, not only in the sports world and entertainment world but also in the lives of others. Everybody deserves a chance."
Artist: D-ROSS
S Bradley McDougald
Cause: Make-A-Wish
McDougald: "I chose Make-A-Wish just because it was an organization that helped my family a lot when my brother was dealing with cancer back when he was in 5th grade and they took great care of us. I just wanted to give back to them."
Artist: CusTheArtist
DE Jacob Martin
Cause: Make-A-Wish & Mothers Against Drunk Driving
Martin: "I work closely with both of those organizations in college and in high school. I've put on different events with M.A.A.D. when I was in college at Temple and also different events with Make-A-Wish in the past. Those are two causes that I work closely, have a relationship with and know the most about."
Artist: KENDALL ROQUE
RB J.D. McKissic
Cause: PAWS
McKissic: "I chose PAWS because a lot of people have animals or dogs, and there are a lot of homeless dogs and a lot of people have female dogs and are just mating and they don't have homes for the puppies. I think that goes over a lot of people heads and they don't talk about their animals and take care of them well enough."
Artist: SEAN VERGARA
WR David Moore
Cause: Brain Cancer & Neurofibromatosis Awareness
Moore: "I chose my cause because there was a kid back where I went to college at. He was a family friend of the girl I was dating and she brought him around, and he had NF – which is a brain cancer and he's a sweet kid and he was a little soldier, so that's why I picked my cause."
Artist: SEAN VERGARA
LS Tyler Ott
Cause: March of Dimes
Ott: "The reason I chose March of Dimes goes back to when I was born pre-maturely a month early. I was healthy and everything, but I stayed in the NICU for over a week. My mom has been involved and working with March of Dimes for a long time now. It's for a great cause that really hits close to home – it's really close to my heart, my mom's heart, having experienced part of it. I was lucky, I was healthy and I've grown up to be the 'success story', but it hits close to home with some of the families that maybe aren't as lucky. It's a cause I've supported for a long time and I think it's a great mission for healthy babies and healthy moms."
Artist: PAUL KING
RB Rashaad Penny
Cause: Autism Awareness
Penny: "I chose it because my cousin has autism and I just wanted to support him."
Artist: KSHAFFSTALL KICKS
RB C.J. Prosise
Cause: Prostate Cancer Foundation
Prosise: "I chose it because of my grandfather recently passed away from it. I wanted to bring awareness to it because it is something near and dear to my heart and I wanted to do something to support it."
Artist: BRITTISH CUSTOMS
DT Jarran Reed
Cause: Alzheimer's & Diabetes
Reed: "My grandma has Alzheimer's and I just wanted to show appreciation to her. A couple people in my family have diabetes too, so I just wanted people to stay aware of things that go on, especially health issues."
Artist: CusTheArtist
WR Caleb Scott
Cause: Haiti Child Sponsorship
Scott: "I've had the chance to go to Haiti a number of times and each time I'm blown away by how awesome the people are. In 1982 my Grandad, Charlie Scott, started a school in Haiti called The Good Shepard School. Today the school has 1,200 students and 42 teachers and staff. Haiti Child Sponsorship funds the operations of the school and also supports local projects where poverty is the norm. It also supports the work of YoungLife Haiti where leaders reach out to the kids in their community to teach them about Jesus. Together we believe we can build a better Haiti!"
Artist: D-ROSS
G Jordan Simmons
Cause: Breast Cancer Awareness
Simmons: "My grandmother is a breast cancer survivor, so I just wanted to do a dedication to her overcoming breast cancer. I am supporting this cause for her, and anyone else who has gone through it."
Artist: D-ROSS
G J.R. Sweezy
Cause: Johns Hopkins All Children's Center
Sweezy: "After having children of my own, just knowing the struggle of people that actually have to use the Children's Center, I couldn't imagine it. It's a good cause and the more help they get, the better."
Artist: D-ROSS
S Tedric Thompson
Cause: Youth Justice Coalition
Thompson: "I'm from Los Angeles, so I grew up around a lot of gangs. A lot of my friends are in gangs right now, so my cleats, one will be red, one will be blue to symbolize Bloods and Crips, then there's a peace sign between both of them to try to put awareness towards gang violence and try to stop it. I'm also bringing awareness about prison reform—there's a lot of stuff that goes on inside of prisons we don't really know about. Every time you hear about a prisoner, you automatically think it's a bad person; that's not the case. So I'm talking about how to improve the living conditions in prison, and about harsh sentencing for non-violent offenders. Also, gang culture, it starts young, so on the other side (of the shoe) there's going to be a school to symbolize that you need to be teaching kids in school what they need for adulthood, stuff like taxes that they don't really teach you about. Being in the inner city, when you get to adult life you kind of get sidetracked by it."
Artist: CusTheArtist
CB Neiko Thorpe
Cause: Black Lives Matter
Thorpe: "I chose Black Lives Matter because black lives do matter."
Artist: CusTheArtist
WR Malik Turner
Cause: Uplifting Athletes Rare Disease Awareness
Turner: "I chose my cause for my cleats because the organization that I'm doing it for, they represent a lot of colleges and they go and they have Lift For Life, where they raise money and awareness for kids with rare diseases. That was the first connection I had to an organization so I just wanted to carry it onto my next level of football and see if I can impact someone else."
Artist: KENDALL ROQUE
TE Nick Vannett
Cause: Never Ever Give Up Jessie Rees Foundation For Childhood Cancer
Vannett: "I've partnered with 'Never Ever Give Up' the last few years. During the offseason, we go visit various hospitals and drop off these toy jars that we call joy jars that have things inside to keep them occupied and keep their minds off of everything that's going on. In addition, we just keep encouraging to keep fighting and to never, ever give up. I get so much joy out of that just because of how happy the kids are just to see us and it's almost like they forget the reason they are there for a moment."
Artist: SEAN VERGARA
QB Russell Wilson
Cause: Why Not You Foundation Supporting Friends Of The Children
Wilson: "The main focus of the Why Not You Foundation is to make dreams come true. Our mission is to change one kid's life at a time and do some impactful, impactful things. Really make kids and people believe that anything is possible."
Artist: SYDNEY NOLAND
LB K.J. Wright
Cause: Clean Water | Healing Hands
Wright: "My cause is building clean water wells in Kenya. I wanted my cause to focus on building water wells because I think it's really important that everyone has access to clean water. A lot of people don't' have that access and many people have to walk miles for it. When they do get the water, it's dirty. I just wanted to bring awareness to it and let a lot of people know that a lot of people struggle in this part of their lives. When I visited Kenya, I visited a school and I noticed that the children had dirty water. I asked people in the community what the situation was and how can we make this better? And they just said they don't have access to clean water, and they have to walk many miles. So I just wanted to build one in a primary location so that everyone has access to it."
Artist: CusTheArtist
Seahawks General Manager John Schneider
Cause: Ben's Fund
Seahawks President Chuck Arnold
Cause: One Love Foundation
Arnold: "Looking forward to showcasing 'My Cause, My Cleats' on Sunday in support of One Love Foundation, which raises awareness to end relationship abuse by educating young people about healthy and unhealthy relationships."
Artist: CusTheArtist
