Every April, Pete Carroll has his Seahawks go through an exercise. In the team meeting room, each player gets up from the seats they were in the year before and finds a new spot around different people.
The idea, quirky as it might be, is to send the message to everyone that when a new NFL season begins, a new identity, new roles and new relationships have to be forged, because the team itself is brand new. You’ve heard it before—what happened last season doesn’t matter, past accomplishments don’t count—and this is the Carroll’s way of physically demonstrating it for his players.