RENTON, Wash. — Jimmy Graham, an all-star tight end, quickly learned things were different with the Seattle Seahawks after he arrived this spring from the New Orleans Saints in an off-season trade.
After he dropped a pass during practice, Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll came bounding over to him — not with a torrent of invective, as might happen on other football fields, but with fatherly counsel not to worry and just to focus more.
He soon found that the soft touch did not stop there. He had arrived on a team in which cursing is frowned upon, a former competitive surfer turned “human optimization specialist” enlightens players in the “arc of the journey” rather than the arc of the pass, and — after one of the most spectacular losses in Super Bowl history — despair is defeated by New Age-style platitudes urging players to be mindful and seek “high-quality moments.