Chris Carson hurt again. How long will he, Shaquill Griffin be out for Seahawks?
Chris Carson set a goal to prove to the NFL he could play all 16 games of a season. For the first time. And in his contract year.
That goal is in jeopardy, for the second time in six games.
The Seahawks’ lead running back left their 37-34 overtime loss at Arizona Sunday night in the first half with a sprained foot. He did not return.
Coach Pete Carroll said after Carlos Hyde replaced Carson for the final 3 1/2 periods of the extended game that Carson has a “midfoot sprain.”
The team’s medical staff will send Carson for a magnetic resonance imagining examination, likely Monday, to determine the extent of the damage.
Carson had five carries for 39 yards early and seemed capable of controlling the game himself, before he got hurt and it got wild as Seahawks games almost always do in the desert.
Pro Bowl cornerback Shaquill Griffin left the game in the third quarter after he got concussed. Tre Flowers and Quinton Dunbar were the cornerbacks the rest of the night, and might be Sunday when the Seahawks (5-1) host the San Francisco 49ers (4-3) at CenturyLink Field.
Griffin is entering the league’s concussion protocol. That takes almost a full week, depending on the player’s response to testing.
“He was pretty clear(-headed) afterward,” Carroll said of Sunday night’s game.
After Griffin got hurt, Seattle blew two 10-point leads. The Seahawks allowed Kyler Murray to complete 34 of 48 passes for 360 yards and three touchdowns, with only Quandre Diggs’ interception of him to counter all the yards, completions and points.
Seattle’s front was no better than its back. The Seahawks had no hits on Murray, let alone a sack. It’s hard in the NFL to drop back 48 times and not get touched once.
The defense that allowed 519 total yards to remain last in the league may be getting back All-Pro safety Jamal Adams from three games out with a strained groin next Sunday against San Francisco.
“I’m confident. There’s 10 games left. We have a lot of talent,” All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner said.
“We just have to make our minds up. No more talkin’. Just do it.
”Either we do it, or we don’t.”
Hyde ran 15 times for 68 yards and a touchdown. But he got stopped on third and 2 with 1 minute left in regulation when the Cardinals collapsed the right side of Seattle’s offensive line onto the running back. A first down there and there never would have been overtime. The Cardinals were out of time outs. The Seahawks would be 6-0.
“I thought Carlos really stepped into the role,” Carroll said.
Sunday night was the third time in six games Carson left injured.
In week three, he sprained his knee because Dallas defensive tackle Trysten Hill tackled the Seahawks’ lead running back on a running play at the line of scrimmage late in the teams’ frantic game Sept. 27. After the tackle, with the play essentially over, Hill held onto Carson’s leg and twisted it.
Carroll said the next day he was “pissed” at the so-called “gator-roll” move despised at all levels of football.
Carson didn’t practice much last week, and his team listed him as questionable to play at Miami. Yet he started the game and scored its first touchdown.
Then, in the second quarter of that week-four game, Dolphins linebacker Elandon Roberts lowered his shoulder into Carson’s head while other Miami defenders held up Carson in a pile at the end of a run. Carson went down immediately onto his back and stayed down, grabbing at his face mask. Trainers and a team doctor again rushed to him. He walked slowly off the field then spent an extended time in the blue observation tent behind the Seahawks’ bench.
The team announced he was being evaluated for a concussion.
But Carson returned to play at the start of the third quarter. He finished the day rushing or 80 yards and two touchdowns to send Seattle to 4-0.
“I told (Carroll) I was playing no matter what,” Carson said.
Why?
Because this is the final season of the four-year deal Carson signed with Seattle as a seventh-round draft choice in 2017 out of Oklahoma State. The Seahawks have yet to offer him an extension he thinks he already should have received, for gaining 2,381 yards rushing total and 16 touchdowns in the previous two seasons for a perennial playoff team, for being the workhorse back upon which Carroll bases his offenses.
But Carson has not completed a full season injury-free since junior college.
“That’s a goal I set for myself this year. I wanted to play 16 games (the entire regular season),” Carson said early this month. “I mean, so no matter what the situation is, you know, injuries, stuff like that, I want to tell myself if I can play through it. I’m gonna play through it.
“I know that’s one of the big knocks that a lot of teams have on me, is: Can you play a whole season?
“And I want to prove to myself and prove to everybody else that I can.”
He may be trying to prove it again this week.
This story was originally published October 25, 2020 at 10:24 PM.
