And it’s the biggest hint yet that he’ll bow out to get out of the way. There will be significant change of some form in the off-season.Ĭarroll saying what he did implies he knows, as well as anyone, that moving Wilson and doing another major reset isn’t plausible.
It’s virtually impossible to imagine any scenario where Carroll, Wilson and John Schneider give it another go in 2022. We surely know by now that he will request a trade. If it’s business as usual next year, Wilson will not accept that. In admitting Wilson’s integral role in Carroll’s own personal success, he’s also announcing to the world that without him, it’s very unlikely success will happen. With the raw emotion thrown in, here was an individual who’s been thinking about things. It did feel though that this was a man admitting the end was nigh.īy referencing the time in which he’s been here, it felt like a tell. I don’t think he was necessarily meaning to push all of Seattle’s success in the way of Wilson (although it’s unquestionable that the quarterback has been responsible for winning season after winning season, despite flaws across the roster). He was candid in a way he rarely is immediately after a game. Nevertheless, my immediate thought on listening to this quote wasn’t about Geno Smith.Ĭarroll genuinely seemed a little choked up. He’s been so bad, it’s practically unfair on the fans to make them sit through another contest with him under center. How Smith has managed to be Seattle’s backup for three years, despite never putting in a single convincing pre-season performance, is a question that still needs to be answered. After all, this is a player who they were so unconvinced by they held Sean Mannion on the initial 53-man roster for the purpose of ‘competition’. You could argue it was also a review of Geno Smith. Russell Wilson’s importance to the Seahawks was made unequivocally clear. With the Seahawks sitting at 2-5, having lost two games they easily could’ve won, reality dawned. Without Russell, I wouldn’t have been here a long time.” And as he fought through a little emotion, he delivered the following line:
He took a deep breath and composed himself. Pete Carroll’s body language has been very different this year