Hurting Geno Smith likely won’t practice for days. Seahawks think he’ll start vs 49ers
Geno Smith apparently isn’t going to practice until the day before the game.
Drew Lock is going to get starting-quarterback reps for the Seahawks until then. That included the backup being QB1 for Seattle in practice Monday. The practice was less than 24 hours after Smith bruised his triceps, Lock threw an interception replacing him, Smith returned and the Seahawks melted down at the end of a 17-16 loss at the Los Angeles Rams.
Yes, the Seahawks practiced Monday. And they will on Tuesday, the players’ usual lone day off of each game week, for Thursday’s mammoth matchup with the San Francisco 49ers (7-3) for first place in the NFC West.
That’s what two games in four days brings — besides billions in television revenue to the NFL for Thursday night games.
To be sure, this is a sub-optimal situation for the Seahawks to be playing the smash-mouth, dynamic 49ers.
Smith began getting treatment on his right arm from doctors on the Seahawks’ flight home from California Sunday evening. He likely will not practice until Wednesday.
“It’s still hurting,” Smith said before he got on the bus to the Seahawks’ flight home.
Yet coach Pete Carroll says the Seahawks expect him to start Thursday.
And if Smith can’t, Carroll said Lock will be ready to make his first start in two seasons with the team. Lock, who turned 27 last week, hasn’t started a regular-season NFL game since week 18 of the 2021 season, for Denver against Kansas City.
The Broncos traded him to Seattle as part of the huge Russell Wilson trade in the spring of 2022.
Smith easily won the competition with Lock to replace Wilson as the Seahawks’ quarterback before last season. He’s had it ever since, including through a three-year, $75 million contract extension Smith signed this spring.
This the first time he’s in some doubt to start a Seahawks game in the two years he’s had the full-time job.
“It going to a couple days to let him get back, make sure it quiets down and all that,” Carroll said of Smith’s contusion in the triceps of his throwing arm, above his elbow. “They know the extent of it. There’s no structural issue there. But he’s got a sore elbow. We are doing everything we can to work through that.
“We’ll see how it goes.”
Carroll said the idea is to give Smith the normal “Monday-Tuesday break that guys normally get.”
You know, when the NFL doesn’t because of television require players to play two games in four days, as the Seahawks and 49ers are doing for a primetime national television audience Thursday night.
“It will be all the way ‘til Wednesday, likely, before he does anything,” on the field, Carroll said.
“If we can maintain keeping the swelling down, so he has the freedom to throw...We’ve got a couple days here.
“We really think he’s got a great chance to make it back.”
“It’ll take a couple days to see what happens,” Carroll said. “And if he can’t make it, then Drew’s ready to go, and we’ll see how that goes. But Drew will get a couple days of work while we’ll hold Geno back here until Wednesday.”
Geno Smith’s injury
Smith got hurt when Rams All-World defensive lineman Aaron Donald crunched him while Smith attempted a pass late in the third quarter with Seattle leading L.A. 16-7. Smith missed the last two plays of that halted series, then two full series. Lock entered, and after a week not practicing with the starting offense went 2 for 6 passing for 3 yards with an interception. The Rams took that turnover and converted it into what proved to be the winning field goal.
Smith went into the blue medical tent behind the Seahawks’ bench for evaluation. At one point the NFL’s sideline concussion advisor was in the tent with him. Smith had winced while laying face-down on the turf as trainers and doctors hustled to him in the middle of the field upon Donald driving him into the turf.
Smith then had a wrap, then an ice pack over his right arm above the elbow. After Lock’s interception and as the Rams drove for the go-ahead field goal inside of 2 minutes remaining, Smith took off the ice and threw passes on the sideline. That convinced team doctors he could return to the game.
He returned for the final series, beginning with 52 seconds and no time outs left. He moved the Seahawks from their own 25-yard line to the Rams 37 by completing 3 of 4 passes. Two big ones to Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf totaled 34 yards.
But Jason Myers missed a 55-yard field goal with 3 seconds remaining that would have won it. The kick drifted just wide of the right upright. It was Myers’ first miss in 16 field-goal tries.
Carroll said he was about to talk to the team in its meeting before practice Monday afternoon about Smith’s guts and leadership returning to the Rams game and performing the way he did.
“I thought that was awesome,” Carroll said. “When I get a chance to address them here when I leave (this interview), I’m anxious to just point that out. He came back, went right out there — he was banged, now. That was a heck of a hit that he took.
“And to get back out, and not just get back out but execute that well, I thought it was real impressive.”
Communications failure late in L.A.
Smith said Sunday the communications system in his helmet through which offensive coordinator Shane Waldron calls plays to him failed with 30 seconds left on a running clock at SoFi Stadium Sunday.
Without a play call from Waldron, Smith made his own: A running play inside left by Zach Charbonnet, the rookie getting lead-rusher status because Kenneth Walker strained his oblique in the first quarter against the Rams and did not return. On the run from the Rams 39, right tackle Jason Peters missed a difficult scoop block on the backside linebacker. Front-side tackle Charles Cross failed to push Rams edge rusher Byron Young out of the whole. Charbonnet’s run gained 2 yards — and took all but 8 seconds of the remaining time on the game clock.
Smith then spiked the ball on second down to stop the clock in time for Myers to attempt the field goal he missed.
Carroll said Monday Waldron was talking to Smith through the helmet speaker, but the quarterback couldn’t hear him.
“In the hurry to get it done, the communication didn’t come through to him. So he just went ahead and made the call,” Carroll said. “We were calling it. We were talking to him. It’s just — it happens so quick, there was so little time there, as he was getting prepared for it he realized he needed to take over and make the call. That’s all.
“That was a good call, a good opportunity. We just didn’t block it as well as we needed to, to pop the ball like we wanted to.”
Carroll was asked: Was that play call Smith never got to spike the ball on first down to stop the clock with 28 seconds left?
“No,” the coach said.
This story was originally published November 20, 2023 at 3:28 PM.
