DK Metcalf, other Seahawks see Pete Carroll’s new motivational ways to end a lost season
These are new days for a veteran coach who’s seen just about everything in his career.
After all, Pete Carroll did begin coaching when Richard Nixon was president.
This Seahawks season is the first one in which Carroll has lost 10 games since 1994. That was his first year as a head coach, his only one leading the New York Jets before they fired their former defensive coordinator.
Carroll was 43 years old then.
He’s 70 now. His Seahawks were eliminated from the playoffs last month, with two games still left in the season. Early elimination hasn’t happened in Seattle since 2011, Carroll’s second year overhauling every aspect of the franchise.
Yet last weekend the Seahawks put together their most complete game this season, albeit against the even-worse Detroit Lions. Rashaad Penny’s career day led a rampage in the running game, 265 yards on the ground. That allowed the offensive line with new starters rookie Jake Curhan at right tackle and Phil Haynes at left guard to better protect Russell Wilson passing.
Rolling out on bootlegs and with other play-action passes, Wilson looked the best he has since he returned in mid-November from finger surgery. He was 20 for 29 passing with four touchdowns. DK Metcalf had a career-best three of those TDs. The Seahawks rolled to their most points in 10 years.
How in the name of lost causes did Carroll get his finished team up for Seattle 51, Detroit 29?
He spent last week telling them this was a make-believe playoff run, a two-week sprint to a fictitious “Super Bowl” in Arizona.
Seattle (6-10) plays the Cardinals (10-5) in the desert Sunday in its season finale. Carroll has made the last game this Seahawks team’s “Super Bowl” for the 2021 season, one that will end with Seattle out of the playoffs for just the second time in 10 seasons.
Thursday of last week, he had the players practicing in helmets for the first time in more than a month. With the Seahawks having played a Monday night game at Washington to end November, a rescheduled game at the Los Angeles Rams on a Tuesday last month then a quick-turnaround game five days later against Chicago the day after Christmas, practices had been even lighter lately than they usually are this late in a season.
Plus, the team has had about a dozen players go on and off the reserve/COVID-19 list with positive cases, including wide receiver Tyler Lockett and starting cornerback D.J. Reed.
The Thursday helmets practice last week got Metcalf’s attention.
“I usually don’t practice on Thursdays because of my foot injury has been holding me out,” he said Sunday of an issue he’s had since early October. “But I heard we were going helmets Thursday.
“We haven’t gone helmets in, like, five weeks. So I figured they were cutting players.
“I wasn’t going to be the one that they were going to cut. I decided to show my (read end) a little bit at practice.”
Then Metcalf had the highest-scoring game of his sterling, three-year career to wallop the Lions.
“I showed them you can’t cut me,” he said after the game, “because I’m still good.”
Where did Carroll come up with his novel approach for these last games?
“That’s out of total desperation, to tell you the truth,” Carroll said.
“I was really fired up. Nobody ever gave me a hard time about that during last week. They kind of went along with it, and we try to use our imagination.
“So now we’re going to Arizona, and we’ll see if we can make it a big event again.”
State Farm Stadium in Glendale, west of Phoenix, was the site of the Seahawks’ last time in the actual Super Bowl, in February 2015.
Rather than merely playing out the string to end a deflating season that has spawned questions across the franchise — from Seahawks chair Jody Allen through Carroll, general manager John Schneider, Wilson, co-captain Bobby Wagner on down the roster — the NFL’s oldest coach is trying new motivational tactics.
“The reason that that’s important to me is because this is our opportunity to play the last games of the year, and you have to win them. The NFL is all about winning that last game, and how difficult it is to win the last game,” Carroll said. “I wanted to have some reference for the young guys that haven’t had that opportunity yet where we’re talking the talk.”
Players such as second-year edge rusher Darrell Taylor (six sacks in his first season playing after injury), rookie wide receiver Dee Eskridge, tight end Colby Parkinson and Curhan.
“They understand that there is a conversation about some factors that can only happen once you get to the very end of the season. I’m just trying to teach them that,” Carroll said. “It’s way more the importance of it than anything else. It’s about teaching what it’s like and see if we can gain something in it.
“This last game (against the Lions), this worked out perfect for taking advantage of putting it like a playoff game: These are the things we need to do; this is what we want to look like. And we pulled it off. So, we’ll have that reference point.
“If we can win another one here, then we’ll be better for it.”
That is, in 2022. Carroll expects to be leading his Seahawks back into the playoffs next season — with Wilson back playing a full, healthy season, as usual.
Carroll acknowledged the end of this lost season has been unique, indescribably challenging, even.
“How can I answer that? I don’t know. I have no idea. How challenging? Let me see,” Carroll said.
“Yeah, it is different. It’s been different for two months. It hasn’t felt the same. You’ve got to do what you can” to keep the players motivated.
The 70-year-old coach has learned in these last two months.
“What I’ve found is, you have to stick true to who you are and what you’re all about and try to find the messaging and the teachable moments and the opportunities to get better in every situation, whether it’s going the way you want it to or not,” he said. “And keep working to get better and staying at task there, and standing for that. Making our program stand for that. Making our players understand that’s what this place is all about, and get comfortable with it or get out of here. You’ve got to get with it.
“That’s the way we’ve been doing it.”
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Collins to IR, Austin back
The Seahawks put running back Alex Collins on injured reserve. He’s had an abdomen injury since October.
The team signed running back Josh Johnson off its practice squad to take Collins’ place on the active roster for Sunday’s finale at Arizona.
Cornerback Bless Austin came off the COVID-19 list.
This story was originally published January 5, 2022 at 7:28 AM.
