Rocky Seto leaving Seahawks to join ministry

Assistant head coach/defense Rocky Seto is leaving the Seattle Seahawks to enter the ministry, the team has confirmed.

Seto, a Christian, coached with Pete Carroll at USC and then joined him in the NFL in 2010 as a quality control coach on defense. The next season, Seto was promoted to assistant defensive backs coach, working with the Seahawks' safeties, and later was named the passing game coordinator.

In 2015, after Kris Richard took over as defensive coordinator, Seto was named assistant head coach/defense.

Among Seto's responsibilities over the years was the implementation of the Seahawks' rugby-style tackling.

"Rocky has been most integral," Carroll said last year. "He has been really the bell cow for us on this one. He is the one that does all of the teaching [of] it in the meetings. He's got a real passion for making the point, and he's always been involved with it with us."

Seto is married and has four children.

"That's a challenge as a coach, to make sure you focus on the marriage and focus on the children," Seto told the team's website in 2010. "Because so many times as men we get caught up in feeling like the work that we do defines us. It becomes more important than anything else."

Seto could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Seattle Times first reported his decision.