Seahawks Pete Carroll on Earl Thomas: ‘I feel bad for him,’ and the All-Pro’s ‘bad state’
The man who knows Earl Thomas better than anyone in the NFL feels for the fading star whom the coach helped turn into a Seahawks All-Pro, Super Bowl champion and millionaire 78 times over in the last decade.
“It’s been a tough time for Earl. That’s a hard situation. I feel bad for him,” Carroll said Monday.
Sunday, the Baltimore Ravens released Thomas after he played just one season for them following his departure in free agency from Seattle in March 2019.
The Ravens released the three-time All-Pro safety Sunday following a fight he had on the practice field with teammate Chuck Clark. His team issued a statement that Thomas, who signed a $55 million, four-year deal with Baltimore before last season after his first nine NFL seasons were in Seattle, had “personal conduct that has adversely affected the Baltimore Ravens.”
“Wish he could have avoided that from happening, whatever it was,” Carroll said before Quandre Diggs was again the starting safety in Seahawks training camp. “I don’t know what happened, particularly.
“But that’s a bad state to get in when they send you home.”
Carroll has a unique, varied relationship with the 31-year-old Thomas.
Thomas grew from rookie, first-round pick in 2010 to the centerpiece of the “Legion of Boom” secondary that led Seattle’s league-best defense to consecutive Super Bowls in the 2013 and ‘14 seasons. Thomas starred on the 2013 team that remains the only Seattle one to win the NFL championship.
In 2015, in the middle of his superstardom, Thomas revealed that when he was playing at the University of Texas through the 2009 season he was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In Nov. 2015, he credited Carroll with helping him corral the disorder to become one of the best safeties in the NFL.
“At the time at Texas, I mean, I didn’t think two things of it. I just kept going -- and kept struggling,” said Thomas, who majored in education while at UT for three years; he left following his redshirt-sophomore season to become the Seahawks’ 14th-overall pick in the 2010 NFL draft.
“But Coach Carroll introduced me to a doctor named Ted Mandelkorn. He’s been helping me out a lot.”
Dr. Mandelkorn was practicing at the Puget Sound Behavioral Medicine clinic on Mercer Island.
How has the ADHD diagnosis and Mandlekorn’s help set up by Carroll helped Thomas on the field?
“Just understanding what I have. I’m not weird,” he said.
“A lot of self-esteem issues and frustrations.”
In 2016, Thomas broke is leg colliding with safety partner Kam Chancellor going after a pass during Seattle’s home win against Carolina.
On Christmas Eve 2017 following the Seahawks’ win at Dallas, Thomas, still in full uniform, went to the Cowboys locker room and at its entrance told Dallas coach Jason Garrett to “come get me when Seattle kicks me to the curb.”
He entered the final year of his contract in 2018 wanting a new deal that would make him the league’s richest safety past age 30. He held out through all of training camp, racking up more than $700,000 in fines. He returned days before the 2018 opener at Denver, and was back in his starting free-safety spot into November.
Then Thomas broke his leg for the second time in three seasons. On the back of a motorized cart leaving the field in Arizona, his final act as a Seahawk was flipping off Carroll and Seattle’s sideline.
The Seahawks let Thomas’ contract expire. He became a free agent. When Baltimore signed him, Seattle got a third-round, compensatory draft choice.
Asked at the 2019 NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, two weeks before Thomas signed with the Ravens if he regretted the way it ended for Thomas with the Seahawks, Carroll said: “Yeah, because he got hurt.
“He was off to a great start in the (2018) season, and just an unfortunate injury again got in the way of it.
“That’s what I regret, that he couldn’t finish on high note and build his case for the future and all of that. He was just on such a tear at the beginning of the season. It was really frustrating for him, I know.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 12:57 PM.
