Safety Kam Chancellor said Monday in a radio interview that the Seattle Seahawks' veterans are spreading the message to players on the team that it's time to grow up after defensive end Bruce Irvin's four-game suspension.
Chancellor, in an interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio on Monday, said the team had a meeting after Irvin's suspension.
"The vets, we put a meeting together to talk to the guys about not making the same mistakes over and over," he said.
When Irvin was suspended for the first four games of the 2013 season after testing positive for performance-enhancing substances, he became the fifth Seattle player to be suspended for using banned substances since 2011, a troubling trend. Six have tested positive, with only cornerback Richard Sherman having his suspension overturned on appeal last December. John Moffitt, Allen Barbre, Winston Guy, Brandon Browner and Irvin have received four-game suspensions. Barbre was later released by the team, while the other four are still on Seattle's roster.
"We have to grow up and move past that," Chancellor said. "That's pretty much the message right now, growing up and not making the same mistakes over and over."
Chancellor called Irvin a "key part of our defense," but said he was confident in Seahawks' depth will help to fill the void left by his suspension in the season's first four games.
"Whoever steps in in that role will do an amazing job as well," Chancellor said. "So we shouldn't miss a beat."
Coach Pete Carroll said last week that the Seahawks go beyond the league requirements for educating players, but he said they will continue to re-evaluate what needs to be done.
"Continually because it's not right yet. We all know that there are big issues. It's not just here it's not just in sports. It's in schools. It's everywhere," he said. "We have to try and figure it out and help through education and all of the ways that we can and we'll always compete to try and find more creative ways to make the message clear."
In an interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio last week, Seahawks general manager John Schneider called Irvin's suspension a "learning opportunity" for the team.
"This is something we take very seriously here," Schneider said in the interview. "The league has done a great job of educating guys and we've actually gone above and beyond what the league has done. We have a guy in place here that helps our player development people. You do what you can. It's very disappointing. Pete and I sat down with Bruce. Pete addressed it with the team. Bruce addressed the team."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.