Huard: Why the play that injured Seahawks RB Chris Carson was ‘filthy’

The Seahawks’ 38-31 win over the Dallas Cowboys came with a cost, and one that could have been significantly cheaper if not for what Cowboys defensive tackle Trysten Hill did at the end of a play in the fourth quarter to Seattle running back Chris Carson.

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Carson suffered a knee sprain after Hill held on to Carson’s leg at the end of a tackle and rolled with it, resulting in the Seahawks finishing the game without their top rusher.

The play by Hill, a second-year player out of UCF, has created quite a bit of controversy. It wasn’t the only play he made against Seattle that may have crossed the line, either. He also had a helmet-to-helmet hit on Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson later on the same Seattle drive.

“That guy likes to flirt on the line of dirty, obviously,” Brock Huard, NFL on FOX color commentator, said Monday on 710 ESPN Seattle’s Danny and Gallant. “I don’t think there’s any question (that was dirty), that alligator roll I think they like to call it.”

Responded Danny O’Neil: “I don’t even know if it’s flirting. One of those you get the benefit of the doubt. Two?”

Huard agreed with O’Neil’s assessment and shared his insight as a former NFL quarterback.

“That was really gross with Chris in particular. You know, sometimes those defensive linemen, especially those that don’t get home to the quarterback very much, don’t get sacks, when they get a chance to hit, it’s just like such a reward for all this grunt work. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt at times with that, but not for the alligator roll. That was filthy, man. That was uncalled for, that’s more than likely I would think gonna have to be a fine.

“I don’t know how you look at that play and don’t say yeah, he was intentionally continuing to grab and roll and use his body weight like ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper used to do in the Figure Four to really try to injure your foe, and that’s not what this game is about.”

Huard expects a more veteran player in the Cowboys locker room to set Hill straight for the play with Carson.

“He doesn’t have a real long résumé in the NFL… He’s not been a guy that’s really made his mark, so more than likely it will be a vet like, ‘Dude, we don’t want to represent that. We can go out and hit somebody as hard as you want, knock the snot and their eyeballs out of their head, but you start to do that, it affects all of us, it brands all of us as dirty.’ I would think some of the more veteran players on that team would do it.”

A play like Hill’s may have been more common in a bygone era, but Huard doesn’t think Hill would have been directed by a coach to do what he did.

“I think you gotta go back some years, even decades, where you did have coaches – defensive line coaches in particular – that really liked putting bounties on quarterbacks, hitting quarterbacks and making sure that they do all they can knowing that if you knock the starting quarterback out of a game, the odds of winning that game are very, very high. … That felt like a one-off, that felt dirty, and that felt like there may be some repercussions.”

Members of the Seahawks’ offensive line may have been more apt to deal out repercussions on their own had the play happened earlier in the game.

“I bet if that happened in the first quarter or second quarter, (there could have been a fight),” Huard said. “… (The Seahawks) have got guys that would absolutely be willing to step in that phone booth and give that dude the business, so I think in that time it was more of game on the line, late in the game, still blocking, probably didn’t even really notice or see it until they watch it on tape. And they won’t get another shot at them until maybe the playoffs.”

You can hear Huard’s full thoughts on that, Russell Wilson’s performance and the Seahawks’ pass defense problems in the Blue 42 segment of Danny and Gallant at this link or in the player below.

Two plays involving Hawks shows NFL only appears to care about safety

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