Why DK Metcalf’s use of ASL means more than just talking smack
More Teams. More Games.
Liz Loza explains where DK Metcalf fits in the pecking order of fantasy playoff wide receivers. (0:46)
RENTON, Wash. — During pregame warmups before the Seattle Seahawks’ win over the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium last Sunday, receiver DK Metcalf ran to the sideline to greet an acquaintance.
Darrell Utley had made the 180-mile trip to Nashville from his home in Knoxville with his wife and two daughters. Utley had told Metcalf about his family via Zoom meetings, which was the only way the pair had interacted until Sunday.
“They told me ‘Merry Christmas’ and [were] happy to meet me in person,” Metcalf said. “I was just telling them likewise.”
The conversation took place in American Sign Language.
As Seahawks teammate Tyler Lockett continues to moonlight as a real estate agent in his free time, Metcalf has undertaken his own off-the-field endeavor — learning ASL. Utley is his teacher and they’ve been meeting virtually since early September. Metcalf has taken some of this newfound knowledge to the field, signing his celebrations after scoring three of his team-high eight receiving touchdowns.
While most NFL fans may know Metcalf the player — with his eye-popping ability and penchant for post-whistle confrontation — his dive into ALS offers a window into Metcalf the person.
“I always try to exercise my mind,” he said, “or try to learn something new.”
To that end, he has taken acting lessons and had a brief cameo in the 2022 Paramount+ film “Secret Headquarters.” He’s also learning to play the guitar, currently working through The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” on his Squier electric guitar.
Learning ASL is Metcalf’s latest interest. What began as a hobby has become a means of self-expression, and as Metcalf has gained attention for signing during games, he has realized there’s a great significance to those who use ASL to communicate and the deaf community.
“It’s just giving people who don’t think they have much of a voice a voice and bringing eyes to something that many people may not have paid a lot of attention to,” he told ESPN. “So just shedding light on something else other than football.”
METCALF’S INTEREST IN ASL began when he took a summer course while enrolled at Ole Miss. He had only retained a small handful of signs by the time he began his lessons with Utley, with whom he was connected by his agency, CAA. So, they started at square one.
Utley, who is deaf, teaches Metcalf via PowerPoint slides. They started off with numbers and letters and have progressed to family members, countries and occupations after nine lessons. The two meet for an hour on select Tuesdays, which is the players’ day off during a typical NFL week.
Metcalf first put his ASL knowledge to use on the field during the Seahawks’ Nov. 19 loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
When the two teams met previously in the season opener, Metcalf had sparred with cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon, his one-time teammate in Seattle. Near the end of that Week 1 loss, Metcalf was flagged for taunting during an exchange with the Rams’ sideline after he had shoved Witherspoon to the ground — he was fined $10,927 for the hit and another $10,927 for unsportsmanlike conduct.
So when Metcalf beat Witherspoon for a touchdown in the Week 11 rematch, he tweaked the cornerback in a way that wouldn’t get him in trouble — by signing “44 is my son.”
Talking trash in ASL wasn’t a motivation for Metcalf to learn the language, but it has become another benefit.
“It demonstrates a diverse way of communicating and looking at the world, and knowing how everybody is so prone to be captured in what you express, it’s a new way,” coach Pete Carroll said. “I think it’s very innovative.
“Until people start studying up and figuring out what the heck he’s saying, he’s going to be OK. He’s got some grace period.”
DURING THE SEAHAWKS’ win over the New York Giants in Week 4, outside linebacker Boye Mafe sacked Daniel Jones, looked toward the sky and paid tribute to his late mother, signing “I love you” in ASL. He honors Bola Mafe the same way before each game.
Mafe studied ASL in high school. His siblings also know the language, and they’d use it in loud places when they couldn’t communicate verbally. He doesn’t know as much ASL as he used to, but he’s retained enough to sign with Metcalf every now and again, sometimes to talk smack.
And sometimes, to teach. At the end of a team meeting the night before the Seahawks’ Thursday night loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Nov. 30, Mafe showed Metcalf the signs that made up the phrase “Standing on business,” a slang term meaning to do your job, or to take care of business.
“We were just sitting in meetings and I had seen that he had did it in the L.A. game, so I was like, ‘Oh, this will be interesting,'” Mafe said. “So I was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got a phrase for you.’ And then I kind of signaled it to him. He was like, ‘What does that mean?'”
Metcalf had Mafe repeat the signs.
“I said, ‘OK, I’m using that tomorrow when I score,'” Metcalf said. “Everybody can give credit to Boye for that one.”
After Metcalf raced to the end zone for a 73-yard touchdown on Seattle’s third offensive play — his first of three scores in the game — he displayed his ASL knowledge to a national audience watching on the Prime Video broadcast.
Kristi Winter, a deaf person and ASL professor at the University of Washington, loved it.
“The deaf community, not just here in Seattle but in the United States, I think are really thrilled that DK is making this example on this big platform,” Winter told ESPN through an interpreter, Andrew Scudder. “Basically for the deaf community who tends to be rather marginalized and not really fully recognized, to have DK do this, that’s great. Many people don’t realize that this is a true community in language, so I want to put my thanks out to DK Metcalf for spreading the word, as it were.”
METCALF SAID WHEN he recognizes one of Utley’s signs, the instructor’s face lights up.
Some 2,000 miles away, while reviewing clips of Metcalf signing inside a conference room on the fourth floor of Washington’s Guggenheim Hall, Winter’s face does the same. As does that of Dan Mathis, a fellow ASL professor and deaf person.
“His sign production was clear,” Mathis told ESPN through the interpreter. “It shows that he has worked with a true instructor of the language, and I appreciate that. He was not making big mistakes because quite often people will make mistakes in the production of sign language, but he wasn’t.”
Metcalf’s most recent on-field ASL display came after his touchdown in Seattle’s Dec. 10 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. He signed, “I’m a dog. Woof” — reciting a lyric from the Migos song “Bad and Boujee,” which had caught his ear during a recent practice.
Metcalf first patted himself on the chest, and with the same hand moved his fingers in a snapping motion to sign “dog.” In ASL, some words that don’t have their own sign are expressed by being spelled out, which is what Metcalf did with “woof,” signing each letter individually.
As Mathis and Winter explained, one of the five parameters of ASL is facial expressions, which are used to convey meaning similar to how a speaker manipulates their tone of voice. On the field, most of Metcalf’s face is hidden behind a dark visor. But Mathis liked how he nonetheless projected an air of confidence by signing while in a backpedaling strut.
“That made his message very clear within the context,” Mathis said. “It wasn’t just like, ‘I’m-a-dog-woof.’ He was really showing it.”
Winter noted how some football historians trace the origin of the huddle back to her alma mater, Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Washington, D.C. In the 1890s, the football team at what was then known as Gallaudet College would gather in a tight circle so they could sign to each other in preparation for their next play without opponents seeing them.
• Full schedule » | Standings »
• Depth charts for every team »
• Transactions » | Injuries »
• Football Power Index »
More NFL coverage »
Winter cites that as an example of what’s known as Deaf Gain.
“Deaf Gain as opposed to hearing loss,” Winter said. “Deaf Gain from the Deaf Community is something that actually gives something back to the general community, so it benefits hearing people as well.”
According to the Modern Language Association, ASL overtook German in 2013 as the third-most studied non-English language in American colleges and universities behind Spanish and French. For years, according to Mathis and Winter, the waitlist for UW’s ASL 101 course has been several hundred students long.
“In terms of DK, he’s using his platform to basically show the benefits of learning sign language,” Mathis said. “That’s like a Deaf Gain thing. The games can be so darn loud as you know. If people know some sign language they can communicate with each other very easily. That’s like a Deaf Gain.”
METCALF OWNS THE franchise record for most receiving yards (5,216) in a player’s first five seasons and is two yards shy of hitting 1,000 for the third time, a mark he barely missed in 2021 (967). He already owned the club record for most receiving touchdowns to begin a career when he caught his 43rd vs. Tennessee, but because it was initially ruled incomplete before it was overturned upon review, Metcalf didn’t have the opportunity for another ASL celebration.
That could come Sunday when the Seahawks host the Pittsburgh Steelers at Lumen Field (4:05 p.m. ET, FOX).
“It’s breaking down barriers to communication within the Deaf Community and deaf people, and it’s a way of connecting with this community,” Mathis said. “It’s building bridges, strong bridges. I really appreciate that.”