“I had braces at the time,” Thomas said. “My lip got stuck to the braces and I had to go to the emergency room. My dad said, ‘Do you want to go back and play?’ I was like, ‘Of course.’

He was playing third base on an all-star baseball team when a ground ball took a funny hop and popped him in the face.

PHOENIX — A mouth full of blood and a lip tangled in barbed-wire braces from his childhood days made Seahawks safety Earl Thomas realize he wouldn’t miss a game no matter what condition he was in.

“This is me. I love competing.”


If he played with a busted mouth in a youth league baseball all-star game, he figured, a separated left shoulder wasn’t keeping him from playing in the Super Bowl for a second straight year.

Thomas arrived in Phoenix with the Seahawks Sunday as banged up as he’s ever been in his five-year career, he said.

Thomas, who is notoriously reckless on the field, injured his shoulder throwing himself into Packers wideout Randall Cobb in the second quarter of the NFC Championship win over the Green Bay. He went to the locker room briefly but returned and played through the injury the rest of the game.

He sat out the Seahawks’ first two practices last week before testing things for the first time Friday.

The first step in playing through pain, he said, was getting his mind to overpower his body.

“I was trying to get over it in my head,” he said. “That is a lot to deal with. It is my first major injury in a way . . . but I got the big picture. My teammates needed me. I am going to do whatever I need to do for them.”

At the time, he said, he was fueled by adrenaline. In the future, the injury will teach him to curb some of the reckless abandon that is naturally a part of his football identity.


“You can’t really feel it because you are pumping inside and you just love everything that comes with sports,” Thomas said. “The injuries, you learn from them. When I get older in my career, I will learn how to play with more focus.

“I can’t do what I want to do as far as creativity-wise. All of this is a learning lesson for me.”

There will be some limitations, Thomas said, that will force him to lean more on his teammates than he’s used to.

“My mind-set is that I have an opportunity to really trust my teammates,” Thomas said. “This is the first game I am going to have to trust them because of my injury.

“I really, really need to trust my teammates, and that is what I am banking on — my teammates doing what they need to do, and I need to come through myself.”

Familiar turf

It’s not at all like the home-field advantage of playing at CenturyLink Field, but the Seahawks may have a familiar-field advantage, considering they play once a year at University of Phoenix Stadium.

The take one trip a year to Glendale to face the division rival Arizona Cardinals, and they’ve won the last three times they’ve stepped foot on the field.

Coach Pete Carroll said he and the players both talked about how comfortable they feel there.


“We know what it feels like,” Carroll said. “We know what the sound is like. I don’t know what the Super Bowl crowd will be like, but the fans down here have supported the Cardinals very well and we’ve always had to deal with that.

“It will be interesting. You never know what the stadium is going to be like in this kind of setting, but there is a sense of comfort that is more so to our favor than maybe some other places that we haven’t been a lot. So we’re happy coming here to play.”

The familiarity works for quarterback Russell Wilson, who is a big believer in visualization.

“I believe in that and seeing the stadium, and knowing where the shot clock is, knowing what the grass is like and knowing all those things,” Wilson said.

“I think it gives you a little bit of an advantage for me personally because I use it mentally throughout the week, but I can’t say it gives you a huge advantage. Hopefully we have a few more fans than the Patriots fans.”

(Boston Globe) Ben Volin reports that Richard Sherman questioned whether the Patfriots will be disciplined for Deflategate because of the relationship between Robert Kraft and Roger Goodell. (By Alan Miller, Globe Staff) Share Email to a Friend Embed (Boston Globe) Ben Volin reports that Richard Sherman questioned whether the Patfriots will be disciplined for Deflategate because of the relationship between Robert Kraft and Roger Goodell. (By Alan Miller, Globe Staff)

The party line

Partying wasn’t on the Seahawks’ Super Bowl itinerary a year ago in New York, and it won’t be this year, said defensive lineman Michael Bennett. The Seahawks went out one night last year, but otherwise stayed in their rooms. “We understood that you have all offseason to party and do all those things,” Bennett said. “You can go to Vegas anytime you want if you win a Super Bowl, and you probably can go for free.” . . . The Seahawks had five Pro Bowl selections who had to miss out on the festivities because of, well, the Super Bowl. One of them, Richard Sherman, didn’t mind missing the game, but he did miss the swag. “That would insinuate that I’m disappointed that I’m in the Super Bowl, so, no, I’m perfectly fine with being in the Super Bowl,” he said. “The one thing I’m disappointed in is that they won’t give us our gifts from the Pro Bowl, which is kind of dumb. The NFL is the only league that punishes the players that make the all-star game.” Even though they were absent, Seattle Pro Bowlers Sherman, Thomas, Kam Chancellor, Marshawn Lynch, and Bobby Wagner were all announced in the first quarter of the Pro Bowl, and received boos from the Arizona crowd.


Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@globe.com.