Frank Clark, a few months before he was arrested for domestic violence and kicked off the University of Michigans football team.
Frank Clark, a few months before he was arrested for domestic violence and kicked off the University of Michigan's football team. Susan Montgomery / Shutterstock.com

The Seahawks present themselves as being a different sort of football team. They do yoga and have fun. And we cheer for them as a unique team. They play differently on the field, and they hold themselves to a different standard off of it. Not necessarily higher (coach Pete Carroll is big on forgiveness) but different. For example, Seahawks general manager John Schneider has stated publicly that the Seahawks will not draft a player who has struck a woman.

So why did they draft former Michigan defensive end Frank Clark?

By now, you’ve probably heard that Clark was arrested in November because of an altercation he had with his girlfriend, Diamond Hurt, in a hotel room in Sandusky, Ohio. Clark was charged with two first-degree misdemeanors for domestic violence and assault, and later pled down to persistent disorderly conduct. He received a $250 fine and was thrown off of the Michigan Wolverines football team.

Seahawks management has been unequivocal in their decision to draft Clark, saying that their investigation of his actions revealed enough to exonerate him of the worst of the accusations leveled against him. “We conducted an extensive independent investigation that included confidential interviews with people directly involved with the case," Seahawks representatives told The Stranger. "That investigation provided our organization with an in-depth understanding of the situation and background."

To be clear, Frank Clark is an elite physical talent. According to Zach Whitman’s metrics, Clark compares physically to players such as Shawne Merriman, Justin Houston, and Jevon Kearse. Those are serious pass rushing talents, and the caliber of player that you just don’t get at pick 63 of a relatively weak draft. When asked about the pick, Schneider said, “He was one of the most effective per rush, and there weren’t a lot of them.”

For his part, Clark has defended his actions while engaging in some subtle victim-blaming. In a story on Clark’s combine interview for Grantland, Matt Taibbi quotes Clark as saying:

“I’m not saying I’m a womanizer or anything of that nature, I’m just saying it was a confrontation … and the woman involved took it to another level that it shouldn’t have been taken to. That’s fine. I’m not throwing her under the bus. I’m not saying she did anything wrong. I’m just saying that a lot of things that happened in that room that night could have been avoided.”

Clark reiterated those sentiments at rookie mini-camp last week:

“Basically the main thing, when you say you put yourself in a bad position, it can go a lot of different way. I could say, I shouldn’t have even drove down there. I could have stayed in Michigan. It could have went a lot of ways. I don’t really want to get in the specifics of that, but I believe the case played out the way it played out for a reason.”

But the police report [PDF] paints a very different and much more damaging picture of Clark:

“[Clark’s girlfriend] advised Frank and her were on the bed and began to argue. She stated she has been short tempered, she got mad, and she threw the T. V. remote at him. She advised Frank tried restraining her on the bed and that is when she bit his nose. She advised he then pushed her head down into the bed and then they both got off the bed. She advised Frank then punched her in the face and she fell back breaking the lamp. She stated she then threw an alarm clock at him and he was trying to gather his belongings to leave.”

According to the police report, the victim's brother observed Clark hitting his sister: "He advised his younger brother, came into the bathroom and told him Frank was stated he was in the shower in the same hotel hitting Diamond. He advised he came out of the shower and observed Frank punching Diamond."

The Seahawks also say they only interviewed Clark—and none of the witnesses, nor the victim—in their "extensive" investigation, even though the team had personnel on the ground the day after Clark's arrest. (Although Clark's lawyer says Hurt now denies that Clark hit her, and the prosecutor in the case said this week, "from what I gathered, I do not believe he punched her, slapped her, anything like that.”)

According to the Seattle Times, motel manager Stephanie Burkhardt said Clark allegedly told her, “I will hit you like I hit her.”

While it’s possible that the Seahawks will renounce their rights to sign Clark or sign him and then immediately cut him, that seems highly unlikely (especially considering the fact that they’ve known about this incident since it happened). I expect that Clark will play around 40 percent of the snaps in the Seahawks season opener at St. Louis, and, health permitting, will be used as a heavily featured rotational pass rusher throughout the season.

The law may not have found Clark guilty of domestic violence, but this incident is clearly troubling. Even given the paucity of available options at defensive end, Schneider’s decision to draft Clark is not justifiable in my opinion.

What’s even more upsetting is that coach Pete Carroll has placed Clark in the narrative of the team’s different brand of football. “We think that something good is going to happen and we’re going to be able to take care of all situations that we deal with and pretty relentlessly go about our daily business with that thought in mind,” he said. ‘Where others might see time to turn away, we’re going to try and outlast the situation. We’re going to hang.”

When I think about Pete Carroll’s optimism, I think of Russell Wilson—a little guy who put up stats worthy of a top overall draft pick in college, who then slides to the team in the third round of the draft. Carroll starts him week one over Matt Flynn, and wins a Super Bowl in Wilson’s second season with an offense tailored to his unique skill-set. Another inspiring version of Carroll’s vision: sixth-round pick Kristjan Sokoli from Albania, who has never played offensive line before and could start for the Seahawks at center this year.

Drafting Clark is the dark side of this optimism. The team is choosing to believe in the best version of Clark, and the best outcome when it comes to fan response. They're choosing to believe they can mold this 21-year-old into someone better. And maybe they’ll be proven right. And maybe that will be because of Carroll’s leadership.

Maybe.

But I’m not a Pete Carroll-level optimist. I think that it’s more likely that the Seahawks’s organizational optimism has morally blinded them, and that they have made a senseless mistake.