Seattle Seahawks wide receiver DeKaylin (DK) Metcalf is a little bit of a hot head. He often gets penalized for personal fouls and was flagged five times in the first five games of the 2023 season.
Although D.K. Metcalf is a pretty chill guy off of the field, he gets riled up during games. That has been the case college and he is not going to change who he is.
If you look at the penalties, there’s a taunting, unnecessary roughness, facemask, holding and, I think, one more in there [illegal blindside block]. I’m doing pretty good if I look at it and judge myself on how I play and just try to be consistent and have clean hands or whatever the case may be. I’m not gonna change who I am as a player or a person.
— D.K. Metcalf on Oct. 19, 2023
It got the point that head coach Pete Carroll also had to address the ongoing penalty problem during the early season. That’s never good!
In an effort to avoid personal foul penalties for talking trash or taunting, Metcalf got creative during the NFL offseason. The 25-year-old wide receiver took lessons in American Sign Language.
It is both admirable and interesting, yes. However, the motive behind his desire to learn ASL is not to communicate with those who are hard of hearing. Directly, at least.
Metcalf is learning American Sign Language so that he can jeer opponents during games without getting flagged.
DK Metcalf is already putting his education to use!
A viral video from Sunday’s game against Los Angeles shows Metcalf use ASL to mock the Rams player who could not cover him in the red zone. The Seahawks pass-catcher scored a touchdown on Ahkello Witherspoon and proceeded to call him his son. It was super savage and belittling, but nobody knew!
Metcalf was not called for a penalty, so he is at least 1-for-1. As of right now, only the one video from last weekend shows him use American Sign Language while on the field. There are surely more to come!
The hilariously brilliant trash-talking strategy will continue to work so long as the officials don’t already know or learn how to sign. They will never know what DK Metcalf is saying!