Pete Carroll previews Monday night’s showdown between Seahawks and Vikings
Dec 7, 2018, 9:23 AM | Updated: 9:25 am
Pete Carroll's Seahawks could win 10 games in a year they weren't expected to be over .500. (AP)
(AP)
The Seahawks aren’t expecting to have right guard D.J. Fluker when they face the Minnesota Vikings in Week 14, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise given head coach Pete Carroll’s comments Monday.
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“Like we said earlier in the week, it’s a big injury for him,” Carroll told 97.3 KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Friday morning. “He’s got giant hamstrings. So he’s going to miss this week and we’ll see what happens next week.”
Seahawks fans will have to wait until Monday night to watch their team face off against the Vikings (6-5-1), where Seattle (7-5) is currently a 3-point favorite.
“This is a really good team, very well-rounded, experienced, and with good leadership,” Carroll said of Minnesota. “They’re tough. Their record isn’t placing them on top of the charts right now, but it’s not because they’re not a good team – they’re really good.
“They bring it in so many areas. It’s not just their defense, it’s not just their offense. Special teams is good, they’ve got returners, they’ve got all kinds of stuff. They’ve got a great all-time kicker, struggling a little bit, but he’s a terrific kicker. The best third-down team, best red zone team, best team versus (explosive plays). It’s just loaded. So we’re going to have to play a really good complete football game, and we’re capable of doing that.”
Here’s what else Carroll had to say Friday morning. Monson’s full interview with Carroll will air at 12:30 p.m. on 97.3 KIRO FM.
Bobby Wagner had an amazing night. What did you make of his performance? “He had a great game. Even some of the stats you don’t see, just in fitting the line of scrimmage and helping guys get lined up and all this stuff. People don’t realize that he knocked the ball out of the goal line on the two-point conversion too, and forced that fumble as well. He had a fantastic game.”
Speaking of things we didn’t see during Wagner’s performance, what are some things you see in games that the average viewer misses? “There was a beautiful play that Austin Calitro made on a fly sweep in front of our bench. He finds himself in a situation on a drill that we do, we call it ‘run and gather,’ where guys work on maintaining leverage to make a tackle and use the sidelines as kind of their help. And he had just a classic, open field run-and-gather tackle that we work on and it’s like teach tape. And it’ll be on everybody’s (film) for us on years to come. We appreciate stuff like that. Our guys went crazy on the sidelines because they saw it perfectly, he executed it, and it doesn’t happen that clearly very often.”
You’ll have Mychal Kendricks back for this game? “Yeah, he looks good, he looked really good in practice this week and we’re excited to have him back out there.”
What can you tell me about K.J. Wright’s progress in recovering from his knee injury? “Well he’s making it back… he’s running and doing some stuff now that gives him a chance to see how he can respond to it. He had a big treatment last week that was important for him and we’re going to see how it goes. We really don’t know. It’s really day to day with him, we’ll figure it out as we go. There’s no timeline that we can nail it with right now.”
What’s D.J. Fluker’s status? “Fluke’s got a hamstring. Like we said earlier in the week, it’s a big injury for him. He’s got giant hamstrings. So he’s going to miss this week and we’ll see what happens next week.”
And Chris Carson is ready to go? “Good, he’s practicing and really shouldn’t be any problem.”
