Looking up: Seahawks getting Chris Carson, two other injured starters back for next game
Pete Carroll was so distracted—and impressed—by Chris Carson’s running, the coach stopped his online Zoom video press conference to watch.
Twice.
“He’s KILLIN’ it,” the Seahawks coach said Friday morning.
Carroll’s eyes remained averted and attracted to Carson’s running off camera across the team’s indoor practice field.
“I wish you could see Chris right now,” the coach said. “Geez!”
The Seahawks’ wish to have their lead running back return from an injured foot back into the offense is about to come true.
Carroll said Carson will play in Seattle’s next game, Monday, Nov. 30, at Philadelphia following the team’s mini-bye.
Carson rushed for 2,381 yards and 16 touchdowns combined in 2018 and ‘19. He’s motivated in the final year of his contract. But he hasn’t played since he sprained his foot Oct. 25 in the Seahawks’ overtime loss at Arizona.
Six minutes into his Zoom call with the media Friday, Carroll left the podium in front of camera to go talk to Carson. They were presumably the coach’s parting words before Carson and his teammates left for their weekend off.
“Excuse me. Excuse me for a moment,” the coach said, smiling at Carson.
“Sorry,” Carroll said a moment later upon his return to the podium and screen. “That was too important. Sorry.”
The coach said Pro Bowl cornerback Shaquill Griffin will return from also missing four games with a concussion and strained hamstring and play against the Eagles next week.
Carroll said starting center Ethan Pocic will play at Philadelphia, too. Pocic has missed the last two games with an extended stay in the NFL concussion protocol.
Plus, Darrell Taylor will apparently be practicing next week for the first time since the Seahawks drafted him in April. Carroll said the rookie second-round pick and pass-rushing defensive end is further ahead in his recovery from surgery in January to repair a stress fracture in his leg than running back Rashaad Penny is in getting back following reconstructive knee surgery 11 months ago.
All these returning Seahawks are part of the advantages on the backside of playing a dreaded Thursday night game on a short week. Their players are getting this weekend off following their 28-21 victory over the Cardinals that put Seattle back into first place in the NFC West. The Seahawks (7-3) have 10 days between that win and a Monday night game at the Eagles (3-5-1).
Asked what impact Carson will have returning to the offense, Carroll said: “The best, the most obvious illustration, is look at what we looked like with Carlos.”
Carlos Hyde, the number-two back behind Carson and a 1,000-yard rusher for Houston in 2019, returned Thursday from a strained hamstring. He played for the first time in four games. Hyde bulled through Cardinals, knocked some down on runs and provided far more than his 79 yards on 14 carries and a touchdown.
He balanced the offense. He reduced the burden on quarterback Russell Wilson, who had turned the ball over seven times in the previous two games without having Carson or Hyde running for him. Hyde made the Cardinals change how they defended Seattle compared to their teams’ first meeting last month, the night Carson and Hyde got hurt.
In Seattle’s three losses this season, Arizona, then Buffalo and the Los Angeles Rams after them, relentlessly blitzed Wilson into mistakes. Those defenses ignored a Seahawks running game that essentially did not exist with Carson and Hyde out injured.
For a time in that four-game stretch, rookie DeeJay Dallas the team’s only healthy running back. Coaches lost trust in Dallas since his multiple missed assignments in pass protection while the Cardinals overwhelmed him and Wilson with blitzes in the fourth quarter and overtime of that first Arizona-Seattle game.
Thursday, the Cardinals had to not only honor but stop Hyde and the Seahawks’ rushing offense. That meant they couldn’t blitz Wilson are freely and often. The result: Wilson returned to being nearly perfect: 23 for 28 passing for 197 efficient yards and touchdown passes to DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett to build a 16-7 lead by halftime.
“Look at him running and attacking the line of scrimmage, and hunting guys on the sidelines,” Carroll said of Hyde in his return. “Catches the check-down pass and wants to knock somebody out. Chases the guy out of bounds to try to hit, run over somebody.
“That toughness that that shows and that impact is what Chris brings. I mean, Chris is that.”
Seattle rushed for 165 yards in the win over the Cardinals. That was 53 more than in the loss at the Rams when Wilson had three turnovers four days earlier, and 108 more than two games earlier in the team’s loss at Buffalo in which Wilson turned the ball over four times.
“Obviously, guys like Chris Carson and guys like Carlos, some of the best in the league. So anytime you lose some of the best players in the league, that always hurts a little bit, for sure,” Wilson said Thursday night. “And so we’re really excited about getting Carson back and Carlos and what those guys can help us do and give us so much versatility.
“We want to able to obviously throw it and do our things in the passing game, but obviously, too, we want to be able to run it. We love running it and we love that attack of being able to run the football so efficiently, making huge first downs. Anytime we can rush for 165...that controls the game. We got to a lot of checks, a lot of plays, changed the plays a bunch and got to some really cool runs. ...
“We made it challenging for their defense,” Wilson said. “They’re a great defense. They had all these different pressures, all these different things that they do, so much versatility that they do. And we really did a good job of protecting it and blocking it up.”
Basically, Wilson doesn’t have to do it all with Hyde and now Carson there to share in the doing. It’s how Carroll always wants to play, at his coaching core.
Carroll said during Thursday night’s game he imagined “If we had Carlos and Chris running, you know, what that would be like in terms of this style of play.”
The coach said even in September into October, when the Seahawks got off a franchise-record 5-0 start and Wilson was throwing the ball all over the place to become the early favorite to win the NFL most valuable player award for this season, the team almost took Carson and Hyde “for granted.”
“I’m disappointed about that, because that’s the element of our football that makes us the style team that we are. It makes Russ’ job different than it is when he has to throw the ball 40 times or 50 times. He certainly can do it and loves doing it, and we don’t mind doing it. But our football is better-shaped when we are balanced and attacking it and we can play off of that.
“It fits the defense. It fits special teams. It’s the statement of the way we play.”
Carroll said he’s never worried about all the passing by Wilson early this season because “I knew we could run the football. We just didn’t have to.”
And they, for almost a full month, didn’t have Hyde and Carson to do it.
They do now.
“You can see it,” Carroll said. “As defenses are catching up (to defending Wilson’s passing game) and they are slowing things down and not as many points are being scored, you’ve got to balance out and have everything available.
“Chris brings us that.”
Olsen out
Carroll said starting tight end Greg Olsen may miss four to six weeks with a torn plantar fascia in his foot.
That would mean on the longer end through the final game of the regular season the first weekend of January, but possibly back for the playoffs if Seattle makes those for the eighth time in nine years.
Olsen got hurt in the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s game. He had two catches for 20 yards, and has 21 catches for 201 yards and a touchdown this season.
Will Dissly (13 catches, 153 yards, one touchdown) and Jacob Hollister (12 receptions, 104 yards and a score) will gain prominence while Olsen is out. Rookie tight end Colby Parkinson, inactive the last couple games, is likely to be active now.
Shell hurting
Brandon Shell, an unsung upgrade over departed Germain Ifedi at right tackle this season, may miss some time with a sprained ankle.
Carroll didn’t specify how long Shell may be out, just that his ankle could take longer than the 10 days until the Eagles game to heal.
Cedric Ogbuehi replaced him late in Thursday’s game. That was because swing backup tackle Jamarco Jones was playing guard with usual guard Damien Lewis had to make his first career start at center, for Pocic.
Pocic’s return should move Jones in for Shell if Shell indeed can’t play in Philadelphia.
