RENTON, Wash. — When Brandon Marshall visited the Seattle Seahawks as a restricted free agent in 2010, the team flew him into its lakefront headquarters via a seaplane. It was a pull-out-all-the-stops move by Pete Carroll, who, in his first season in Seattle following nine at USC, was tapping into his recruiting background to try to woo one of the best available receivers.

The Seahawks didn’t need a seaplane to land Marshall eight years later. At 34 years old and coming off a pair of surgeries, he feels grateful to have another shot. He’s getting it in Seattle after signing a one-year deal that was agreed to on Tuesday.

“I didn’t have a ton of options,” Marshall said Wednesday following the Seahawks’ fifth organized team activity. “I think the sentiment around the league is that I’m done, and I get it. Rightfully so. When you get on the other side of 30 and your production slips and you have a big injury, people just count you out. So it was an interesting process. It was a humbling process, to say the least. There were some really tough days that I had to push through, mentally and physically, so for this to be an opportunity and come to [fruition], you can’t ask for a better situation. You’ve got probably a top-three quarterback, you’ve got one the best franchises, you’ve got a young nucleus, guys that are hungry and ready to compete.”

Marshall took part in Wednesday’s practice, sporting the No. 15 that he has worn for most of his NFL career. He caught some passes from Russell Wilson and Seattle’s other quarterbacks during positional periods, but he didn’t take part in any of the 11-on-11 drills.

“We just had to just ease him in today,” Carroll said. “Just get him started, get him on the field with us and Friday we’ll do a little bit more, just keep growing with it.”

Marshall’s contract can be worth up to $2 million with incentives, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. That may seem like a pittance for someone who’s been one of the most productive receivers of his era. Marshall has topped 1,000 yards in eight of his 12 seasons, most recently in 2015 with the New York Jets, and his six seasons with at least 100 catches are the most in NFL history, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

Seattle Seahawks strong safety Kam Chancellor, speaking publicly for the first time since he suffered a career-threatening neck injury last season, said he wants to continue playing if his health permits.

“If my body says I can play, I’m playing,” he told 13News Now in his hometown of Norfolk, Virginia, before repeating that line. “If my body says don’t play, I’m not playing. I’ll listen. I’m a very good listener.”

The 30-year-old Chancellor added: “I don’t see myself as old. I feel like I’m still in my prime, so it’s not an age thing at all. It’s just a matter of structural issues in the neck and if they change or not.”

Chancellor, a four-time Pro Bowler, missed the final seven games of last season after he was injured while making a tackle late in a November win over the Arizona Cardinals. He has yet to be cleared to resume playing football, and coach Pete Carroll had an ominous comment about Chancellor’s football future when he said at season’s end that Chancellor as well as defensive end Cliff Avril would “have a hard time playing football again.”

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Blake Bortles has plenty of things he wants to improve on over the next several months before the Jacksonville Jaguars begin the 2018 regular season, but he hit the practice field for the team’s first organized team activity with nothing to prove.

That isn’t a position he has been in much in his previous four seasons with the team.

Bortles has a new contract, some new players and playmakers on offense, and a new confidence that comes from playing in an offensive system he likes — a system that helped produce the best season of his career in 2017. That can only be a good thing for the team that came within 10 minutes of making the first Super Bowl in franchise history.

“It’s a little bit unfair because I was just getting to know him last year, but I really did notice a certain level of comfort [on Tuesday] as opposed to a year ago,” quarterback coach Scott Milanovich said. “Now a year ago, I was still learning this offense, too. We kind of leaned on each other a little bit, but his confidence has clearly grown.”

Bortles heads into the 2018 season not worrying about his mechanics and holding onto his job, not answering questions about the team’s decision to pick up his fifth-year option, not trying to prove to his teammates that he can be their leader, not learning a new offense and not adjusting to a new coordinator.

Putting those concerns behind him has been important. Playing quarterback in the NFL isn’t easy, but it is made much simpler when a player can concentrate on deepening his understanding of the offense so adjustments, audibles and tweaks become almost second nature.

“I think any time you feel you get the support of the locker room, that definitely helps just playing quarterback, and I felt that I had that all last year,” Bortles said. “The contract stuff doesn’t really change anything about how I think or how I approach every day. I think the biggest difference going into this year is just the fact that we’re going into Year 2 with [coordinator] Nathaniel [Hackett] and having him calling plays for the second year in a row.

“Having that continuity and being out there, trying to coach the guys and being able to be there and help those guys out rather than this time last year, I’m trying to learn it right there with him.”

Bortles said Hackett tells him regularly that he should know the offense better than anyone else in the building — including Hackett. That might be a bit of a stretch, but Marrone said one of the biggest differences he sees in Bortles from the end of the 2017 season is an increased knowledge and understanding of the “why” part of the offense. As in, why Hackett is calling that particular play at that particular time against that particular defense or front with that personnel group at that particular point on the field.

Le’Veon Bell raps in a new song released this weekend that he feels targeted by those criticizing him for his contract drama with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The star running back announced the song’s release on social media.

New Single “Target” out everywhere on all music sites…I hope youu all enjoy this banger…I appreciate all the positive feedback from everyone ??https://t.co/sEYEiNPtWj pic.twitter.com/lwLGJJI5pl

— Le’Veon Bell (@LeVeonBell) May 26, 2018

In the track titled “Target,” Bell, who has stayed away from the Steelers’ offseason program and organized team activities after being franchised for the second straight year, raps that he’s not the “bad guy” that he’s made out to be by his critics.

The song references him being tagged, the way his critics have turned on him during his contract dispute, people saying he’s out of shape by skipping team workouts, and his drug suspensions. He points out that he never failed a test and never violated the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs.

Bell’s 2016 suspension for violating the substance abuse policy (which was reduced from four games to three after appeal) was for missed tests. His three-game suspension in 2015 under the policy was after an arrest for marijuana possession and DUI in 2014.

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  Antonio Brown, who had his own contract dispute with the Pittsburgh Steelers a few years ago, said he would give this advice to friend and teammate Le’Veon Bell: “Show up and get better and show guys you’re serious.”

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  Le’Veon Bell tweeted Thursday that it’s “hard to be a hero in a city that paints you out to be the villain,” apparently venting his frustration at negative reaction to his contract drama with the Steelers.