LeSueur helping Seahawks prepare for Super Bowl tilt

He was called up three weeks ago to help Seattle's practice squad.
DETROIT FREE PRESS
KIRKLAND, Wash. -- He was back home in Holly Springs, Miss., when the call came three weeks ago. The Seattle Seahawks were interested in his services. Could he get on a plane and help the team practice?
Before the phone rang, Jeremy LeSueur was out of professional football, released by his second team in as many years and wondering if he wouldn't just hole up and live out his life in anonymity in the Deep South.
He had been through this before.
Not long after he arrived at Michigan as a promising cornerback, he shredded a knee and missed his freshman season. He got back on the field his sophomore year, but was benched after two games.
He didn't hit bottom until his third year, when he was flagged for grabbing Charles Rogers' face-mask in a game at Michigan State. The penalty kept a last-minute MSU drive going, and, some said, cost Michigan the victory.
A few weeks later, he was arrested on a charge of solicitation and suspended from the team.
Battled back at Michigan
LeSueur fought his way back, made the starting lineup the next year and was named second-team All-Big Ten as a senior in 2003.
He is fighting his way back now.
On the practice squad.
For a team headed to the Super Bowl.
"Surprising," he said Wednesday, chatting about the detours at Michigan and the circuitous path he's on now.
LeSueur was standing in the hall outside the locker room at the Seahawks' practice facility, getting ready to head back to his hotel room, his home since he was called by the Seahawks.
"It's a learning station," he said. "A stopping point."
It is a chance for LeSueur to regroup, take a few more snaps and hang around a championship-level team, even though he doesn't dress for games. In the meantime, maybe someone will notice him. Then again, maybe they won't.
"If it ends like that," he said, "I have no problem."
He'll just head back south, hit the weights, stay in shape and wait for an invitation to training camp somewhere else.
LeSueur, 25, never thought it would be like this. But then he thought the same thing when his flight to stardom crashed back in Ann Arbor.
Drafted by Broncos
He was drafted in the third round by the Denver Broncos in 2004 and expected to compete for playing time. Hernia surgery cost him his rookie season. When he came back, the Broncos moved him to free safety, thinking he could help replace departed free agent Kenoy Kennedy, who signed with the Lions.
The switch was difficult. LeSueur had lost a sliver of quickness because he put on weight--he's 205 pounds--after the surgery. And he had never played at the back of the defense, as safeties do, gauging the quarterback's intention, reading the formations. He grew to like it, but not before the Broncos cut him. The New York Jets picked him up. He stayed at safety, but played little and was cut in November.
When the season ended a month ago, LeSueur found himself back in Mississippi. Then the Seahawks called and offered the practice field.
"It's not something you are used to," he said of not playing. "Coming out of school, everybody can play. The practice squads are full of people that started in college."
But he knows players make the jump from practice fields to stadiums. He's just waiting for a chance. Trying to work hard and climb back up.
The best part?
"Just being around a championship team," he said. "You pick things up, things you can take with you."