A member of the Seattle Seahawks reportedly tried to sneak a woman into the team hotel by making it look like she played for the team. He now no longer plays for the Seattle Seahawks.
Kemah Siverand, an undrafted rookie cornerback out of Oklahoma State, was released Tuesday in a move that gained little notice at the time. On Thursday, we learned why he was released, which unsurprisingly generated much larger ripples.
NFL Network was first with the news, citing sources in reporting that Siverand was “caught on video trying to sneak a female visitor into the team hotel.” The report, which sources confirmed to other media entities, added that the woman “was wearing Seahawks gear in an attempt to disguise her as a player.”
The MMQB followed with a report that the woman attempted to gain access to Siverand’s room by “wearing a Seahawks hoodie pulled up over her head.” Team security personnel reportedly managed to see through the elaborate ruse and put a halt to the scheme.
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In an appearance on Seattle sports radio’s “Softy and Dick” program, Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll was asked about the reported circumstances of Siverand’s release.
“I would never talk about those kinds of stories,” Carroll replied. “We handle that on the interior. No details to that.”
The Seahawks are currently at their training camp in Renton, Wash. NFL clubs have long had rules about who can come and go from team hotels and at what time. In 2016, viewers of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” learned that former Maryland wide receiver Deon Long was cut by the Los Angeles Rams for bringing a woman into his training camp dorm room.
“What part of the rules, what part of ‘No female guests in the room,’ did you not understand?” Jeff Fisher, then the Rams’ head coach, asked Long. “We have rules and we have to abide by them."
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“Not the first time I’ve done this for this particular violation,” Fisher added, “but I thought I made myself really clear.”
This year, unauthorized visits are likely considered by teams to be an even greater offense amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
In a July 3 memo to NFL teams detailing coronavirus testing and other procedures for training camp, the league offered this reminder (via NFL Network): “Room visits are permitted only by members of the Traveling Party.”
“There’s pages and pages of the protocols, because they go in so many directions, but in general, you hear the phrase about creating a bubble around your team, like the NBA has done and the NHL. We’re doing the same thing here, as best we can,” Carroll said in his radio appearance.
The NBA, which is finishing its 2019-20 season with participating teams staying and competing at a Disney-owned property near Orlando, reportedly sent a memo Wednesday outlining the conditions under which players could bring guests into the league’s bubble at the end of the month.
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According to ESPN, the memo stated that guests who aren’t family members must have “long-standing relationships” with their hosts and cannot be “known by the player only through social media or an intermediary.” The aim, a general manager in the league explained, isn’t just to limit possible carriers of the virus but also to minimize any possible drama that certain visitors could cause among players in the bubble.
“There’s a big conscience that goes around here, where you’re always protecting your teammates,” Carroll said Thursday of the culture at the Seahawks’ training camp, “and you’re always looking after each other here, so that we make good decisions.
“We’re staying very strict and very disciplined about how we’re doing this,” he continued. “So far it’s going really well.”
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