olyfan63":34m3cnrh said:
Strange but true. I could actually see Carroll choosing to prioritize player development and players learning the standard they need to play to -- O-Line in particular -- over winning THIS game. By that I mean learning to play Pete Carroll Seahawks football.
Exactly. Player development and player safety in THIS game. Just like a pre-season game where you want to win, but not at all costs.
I think Carroll had real concerns about how the offensive line would be able to protect Wilson and Lynch in this game against this defense. I think he also had questions about Lynch's focus/ conditioning for this game, thus Rawls was active. He wanted to try out some new ideas on defense (Sherman as nickel cb?), and see how Thomas and Sherm had recovered from their injuries.
It appeared he may have hobbled Russ a bit to ensure he stays healthy for the rest of the season. I imagine him instructing Russ to keep it vanilla, and believing we had a good chance to beat them with vanilla. If so, I would say it was the right call. I would much rather come out of this game healthy with a loss, than come out with injuries to our stars, especially Wilson, and a win.
Can you imagine the s-storm on here if we had let Wilson run the read-option with an untested line and he got murdered?
It's a long season, with a ton of winnable games. After the first two weeks, it is not inconceivable that we win out. Unlikely, but not inconceivable. I think they approached this as a chance to evaluate what they really have, stay healthy, take advantage of an amazing learning opportunity for our new offensive line, and try out a few new twists on defense.
And they almost won with this formula.
- bsd