This was so much more than a fan “football fest” to AJ Finley.
The Seahawks had their annual training-camp practice at Lumen Field Saturday night. It’s essentially just another practice, the 13th of camp. It generally follows the same format as if the players were drilling yet again on their practice fields and team headquarters along Lake Washington in Renton. But more fans can attend this one.
Almost a year ago to the day, in this same event last year, the 24-year-old Finley had the worst moment of his football life. Emerging on coach Mike Macdonald’s defense as a reliable safety in the summer of 2025, Finley fell awkwardly on the Lumen Field turf. He tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee. His season was over before it started.
His future as a Seahawk and in the NFL was in jeopardy.
“I went through every emotion you can imagine. Obviously,” Finley said Saturday. “You put so much work in, and then it’s taken away just like that.
“A lot of guys, especially in my position (as a reserve), you don’t back from ACLs like that. …It’s a long process. It’s tough on the brain.
“I feel like what I did very well is, I dealt with it so fast. The next week when I came back from treatment I was already over it.
“I was very, so what? I had a strength coach tell me: ‘So what, now what?'”
That strength coach was Wilson Love. That was when Finley, a native of Mobile, Alabama, played at Mississippi from 2019-22. Love has since become the head football strength and conditioning coach at the University of Oregon.
Finley has since been an undrafted rookie free agent who played 12 games in 2023 almost entirely on special teams for the Los Angeles Chargers. The Chargers’ linebackers coach then was Jeff Howard, who is now entering his third season as Seattle’s safeties coach. When the Chargers waived Finley during the 2024 season, the Seahawks with Howard as their coach at Finley’s position claimed him.
Howard has instilled in Finley the importance of communication before and during the play at the safety position.
Love instilled in Finley the mindset of, as Finley describes it: “No matter what happens to you, you’ve got to fight back.
“That’s what I did,” Finley said.
That fight back reached its zenith Saturday night.
In the same Seahawks “football fest” practice that was ruined Finley’s 2025, he showed he’s out to win a roster spot for 2026.
Early in a simulated-overtime scrimmage, 11 on 11 of the starting offense versus the second defense, Super Bowl-winning quarterback Sam Darnold was looking to throw to NFL offensive player of the year Jaxon Smith-Njigba on a deep out route to the right sideline.
Finley raced over from his safety spot in the center of the field behind Smith-Njigba, and behind the cornerback closely covering the wide receiver. As Darnold was throwing the ball, Smith-Njigba fell coming out of his outside break. Darnold’s pass went directly to Finley.
He ran down the left sideline with the interception, to the opposite end zone. His defensive teammates ran with him to celebrate what would have been a game-winning score.
“I was shocked he threw it,” Finley said of Darnold. “He usually doesn’t make those mistakes.”
When Finley got to the defense’s sideline, you’d thought the Seahawks won the Super Bowl again.
“It’s definitely a full-circle moment,” he said.
His teammates and coaches had been hesitant all day to talk to Finley about this milestone, the same event at about the same day last year of his serious injury. Defensive backs coach Karl Scott was the only one who did.
“It’s one of those things as a coach: How do you handle it? Do you bring it up? Do you not?” Macdonald said Saturday night.
“We were all kind of thinking of him coming into this.”
Under the logo, what the #Seahawks will be unveiling here at Lumen Field Sept. 9 at the opening game vs New England, to match the 2013 Super Bowl champions banner in the stadium rafters immediately to its left. pic.twitter.com/sxIzJmddWr
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) August 9, 2026
Finley said he had many teammates “who did not want to say anything to me before practice, because everyone obviously knew.”
After the interception, the emotions and this team’s brotherhood took over.
“Man, a year later, you get a pick! That’s so special!” they yelled to him.
They celebrated Finley for being all the way back from his long, lonely rehabilitation all last season from his knee getting reconstructed.
“It’s incredible,” Macdonald said. “Incredibly happy for him. He’s worked incredibly hard. He’s been an incredible teammate the whole process.
“This time last year he was really battling for a great role.
“He’s put himself right back in the thick of things.”
It won’t be easy. The Seahawks have Nick Emmanwori on his way back from arthroscopic knee surgery last month to be Macdonald’s decisive, hybrid safety/linebacker. Emmanwori was stretching some with his teammates before he watched another practice while on the physically-unable-to-perform list Saturday.
Veteran D’Anthony Bell has been Emmanwori’s fill-in at the “big nickel” spot during this camp.
Pro Bowl veteran Julian Love is entrenched as one starting, deep safety. Ty Okada is the other starter, replacing departed (to Chicago in free agency) Coby Bryant after Okada’s impressive 11 starts last season as an injury fill-in.
Seattle drafted safety Bud Clark in the second round this spring. He’s been getting more plays with the starting defense alternating in over the last week.
That leaves Finley battling with former Colts starting safety Rodney Thomas and second-year veteran Maxen Hook for perhaps the final roster spot at the position.
Then again, what’s Finley done the last 12 months that’s been easy?
Seahawks noted AJ Finley’s rehab
NFL teams don’t mandate where guys do their rehabilitation from major injuries.
A team prescribes a plan with a list of recovery milestones. For ACL tears those may be goals for range of motion, strength and flexibility in the recovering knee. Guys may go back home or to where they played college football, to trusted therapists and people they’ve worked with for years. But the team doesn’t mandate that rehab be done entirely at the team headquarters.
Finley did his entirely at the team headquarters all last year into this year.
“I mean, they asked me stay, so I obviously wanted to stay,” he said.
“So…I just stayed up here and did my rehab.”
From September into February, Macdonald, his coaches and Finley’s teammates saw him every day last Super Bowl season grinding in the training room with no chance to play. They saw Finley fulfill his goal of finishing his rehab work to get out to the sideline to watch practices at least twice a week.
“Oh, yeah (I noticed that),” Macdonald said.
Finley said he did that so he could still feel a part of the team.
He’s absolutely a part of these Seahawks again. His redemptive, full-circle Saturday night back at Lumen Field showed that.
“Guys have the liberty to rehab how they choose. But anytime someone chooses us, (it) feels great,” Macdonald said.
“Obviously, that’s what we’d rather someone do, and make that decision.
“It’s just his spirit. That’s a tough situation, man. He’s trying to carve a role out and a career for himself. And it shows you how fragile it is.
“How do you not be just incredibly happy for the guy?”
Sam Darnold throwing to Cooper Kupp and the rest of the #Seahawks WRs at the annual fan-fest practice at Lumen Field.@thenewstribunepic.twitter.com/VQI6Vv839f
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) August 9, 2026
Discover more from NAIRAVOICE.COM.NG
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
