Seahawks / Training Camp -- Biggest Battle Won't Be Bitter Battle

CHENEY - They stand together on the practice fields, two giant men with soft voices and big dreams of starting for the Seattle Seahawks.

Phillip Daniels and Antonio Edwards. One wears 93, the other 94. They are back-to-back entries in the team's media guide. They come from the same part of Georgia, their hometowns an hour's drive apart. One's cousin is among the other's closest friends.

But they play the same position, right defensive end. And this is the worst of the similarities. Only one will start.

When the Seahawks talk about the biggest battles of this training camp, it always comes back to Daniels and Edwards. Either could start, so everyone expects a fight. Maybe the toughest of the summer. Yet ask each one about the other and they smile. They are friends. Daniels, a second-year player, says Edwards, who has been around for five seasons, is the only veteran he feels comfortable joking with. Edwards says he hopes Daniels does well.

"It's just two young guys wanting to play football at one position," Edwards says. "We're just two guys trying to put our names on the game. There's no animosity, no put-downs. I wish him the best."

Yesterday, the Seahawks practiced for the first time in training camp. For a while Daniels and Edwards were each at an end, playing at the same time. It will not be that way during the season. Cortez Kennedy, Sam Adams and Michael Sinclair are among the better defensive linemen in the NFL. There is room for one more.

For a long time, the position belonged to Edwards. He started 21 games in the 1994 and 1995 seasons and won the job again last year. But he suffered a strained medial collateral ligament in an exhibition game. He tried to play, started three games, and then couldn't go anymore. While he was out, Michael McCrary developed into a star who wound up with 13 1/2 sacks.

McCrary is gone, signing as a free agent with Baltimore. And while the position would seem to go back to Edwards, Daniels has improved. He was once a quarterback, then a linebacker at the University of Georgia. It was only in his last year at Georgia that he was moved to defensive end, so he has had just two seasons at the position.

Edwards helps him, calling out encouragement while he sits out plays in practice. And as Daniels learns the position, he shouts things to Edwards during the times he doesn't play.

"It seems almost like a dream," Daniels says. "I got drafted, and I come here, and there were two guys in front of me. One guy gets hurt, the other becomes a superstar, then he leaves. Now it's a competition between Antonio and me."

Sometimes, it's strange how things work out. When Daniels was drafted last year by Seattle, one of his best friends at Georgia, linebacker Greg Bright, told him to look up his cousin. His cousin turned out to be Edwards.

"Me and Phil are cool," Edwards says. "We chitchat. Professional things are about business. What we do off the field, it's personal."

There isn't much difference between the two. Daniels is 6 feet 5, Edwards 6-3. Daniels weighs 263 pounds, Edwards 271. Both are probably better run defenders than pass rushers. The one who rushes the quarterback the best in the next few weeks probably will win the spot.

"Right now, I don't have any idea one way or another," defensive-line coach Tommy Brasher says.

Neither does anyone else. Daniels, the louder of the two, the one who seems more comfortable about talking the battle, says he dreams of starting.

His mother watched this year's draft, praying Seattle wouldn't take a defensive end. When two days and seven rounds went by and Seattle hadn't taken a defensive end, she was relieved.

"Here's your chance," she said.

It is there, waiting to be taken. Phillip Daniels and Antonio Edwards stand together on the practice fields.

"There's no time for animosity," Edwards says. "This game is short enough. Ten years is not a long time to play, if you can even make 10 years."