Seahawks receiver D.K. Metcalf and Hall of Fame tight end Shannon Sharpe got into a back and forth on Twitter earlier today. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll wishes it hadn’t happened.
“In general, I don’t know why anybody would want to communicate that way, openly,” Carroll told reporters. “You can always call people and talk to them and work things out a lot more efficiently. We have always tried to discourage our guys from communicating in that fashion. For the most part, guys are really good at it now. Guys used to use Twitter like they were sending a text. They figured it out and D.K. has a big awareness. I don’t know how that one went kind of wherever. If you watch D.K., you will always see him come around, he will always come around to clear thinking, and he’s a really bright kid.”
Metcalf didn’t like being criticized by Sharpe, who said Metcalf was trying to be the “hero” when failing to go out of bounds when making a catch late in regulation, and nearly resulting in the remainder of the time disappearing from the clock.
Metcalf is still young and he’s learning. He needs to learn to ignore the criticism or, ideally, to learn from it. Sharpe had a point; it looked like Metcalf ignored the opportunity to kill the clock for a game-tying field goal in an effort to try to score a game-winning touchdown. While the prerogative for coaching Metcalf falls to his coaches, it’s the job of analysts to chime in. Sharpe did. Metcalf will understand, in time, that he should just ignore it.