The Seattle Seahawks have gone through as much roster upheaval as any still competitive team in recent memory.

Pete Carroll compares the experience to his time at USC.

“This feels like when you’re in college,” Carroll said. “That senior class graduated—those guys that did all the playing for you. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a good team next time around. New players, new coaches. There’s new juice about everything that we’re doing. I go back and do all my teaching again. I’m really happy about it.”

“I mean, this is what the league is now," said John Schneider. "We move guys all the time. For a while, we were able to reward guys here at the top of their positions. Then we had to make decisions—who to keep and who not to keep—and we got the bad injury news on Cliff Avril and Kam Chancellor [forced to retire due to injuries]. We didn’t see those coming.

“But there’s another thing. You know Pete. He preaches competition, open competition, every single day. It’s hard to preach that when you got the best corner and the best free safety and the best strong safety and the best middle linebacker, all young, and you know those guys are locked in there. They were the youngest team to win it all. You don’t tear that apart.

“Now, this. It’s fun. Lots of enthusiasm. So much spirit, so much new. It’s pretty cool.”