PHOENIX — Rocky Seto is the Seattle Seahawks’ defensive passing game coordinator.
“Am I actually in charge of the pass game?” Seto said. “No.”
This, then, is what Seto does do: He spearheads the tackling tutorials, oversees the scout-team defense, delivers the most creative presentations at Seattle headquarters, instructs the safeties, teaches the cornerbacks, draws on Bruce Lee and the animal kingdom to inculcate turnover-forcing techniques, executes special projects, analyzes third-down and red-zone and two-minute tendencies, advises Coach Pete Carroll, assists the defensive coordinator Dan Quinn on game days and assists everyone else every other day.
He approaches his job with the narrow focus of a position coach and the macro view of a coordinator, jotting down notes, thoughts and ideas. If Seto were to list all his responsibilities on a résumé, he would need a second page.
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“He went full speed, whether you liked it or not,” said Morton, the Seahawks’ assistant special-teams coach. “If he was on scout team, he was going to hit you. He didn’t care if it was walk-through or the end of the week. You wanted everybody to go as hard as he does.”
With no pro prospects, Seto intended to attend graduate school at U.S.C. for physical therapy — he even sent in his deposit — until the coach at the time, Paul Hackett, offered him a job as a volunteer assistant. So began his foray into coaching, 16 seasons of working with safeties and linebackers, of quality control, of running defenses.
And of coordinating passing games on defense, a job he never knew existed, or what it entailed, but, like the rest of the Seahawks, is sure glad it does.
