Carroll discusses Adams’ return, Seahawks’ rookies ahead of Giants game

The Seattle Seahawks have their first primetime game of the season when they head to the East Coast for a Monday Night Football clash with the New York Giants.

Seattle Seahawks will try to stay perfect at MetLife when they face Giants

It’s a big game for the Hawks for a few reasons, including because it’s the team’s last game before their Week 5 bye.

Seattle will also be under the primetime lights for the first time in 2023 and are expected to get a big name back for the game.

As he does every week, Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll joined Steve Raible for The Pete Carroll Preview, which airs every Friday at 8:15 a.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM.

Jamal Adams likely back

It’s not official yet, but the Seahawks expect safety Jamal Adams to play for the first time since Week 1 of last year, when he suffered a major quad injury while blitzing.

“We’ve got to make sure that the whole week fits … But we’re counting on him,” Carroll said. “He’s ready to go. He’s had a terrific week already and if he just comes out of it OK, he’s in there.”

Carroll called the three-time All-Pro selection a “dynamic football player” who should provide a big boost to Seattle’s defense.

“Our expectations are probably really high that he’s going to stop every play and make every sack and all that. You can’t do that. But he’s going to be a fantastic addition,” Carroll said. “Not to mention the emotional energy that he brings to this team, too. He loves to play the game. He’s going to be demonstrative and physical and all of that, and you’ll see him explode a couple times in this game, for sure. And that’s just a beautiful part of the defensive package when we get it going.”

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Seattle Seahawks rookies on Monday Night Football

The Seahawks again are one of the NFL’s youngest teams, and they’ve had a number of contributions from rookies on both sides of the ball this season already.

“That’s so exciting for us because we know that they’re going to get better. And it’s not so much that they’ll get more athletic or faster or anything like that, they’re just going to be more comfortable with what’s asked of them and how the game hits them and the adjustments that we make,” Carroll said. This is great that we’re getting them playing time early. By the middle of the season, those guys are going to be really, really valuable to us because they’re all really good athletes. They all have enough talent to do stuff. But now when they can get themselves settled down and comfortable where they can really start to anticipate stuff, that’s when the good stuff really starts happening.”

One rookie who made a big impact last week is running back Zach Charbonnet, a second-round pick. He trucked a Carolina defender, which quickly went viral on social media.

Zach Charbonnet lowered the BOOM in Week 3 💥

(by @FastTwitchDrink) pic.twitter.com/xn9strVF63

— NFL (@NFL) September 26, 2023

Carroll said the Seahawks have enjoyed that play quite a bit since it happened.

“The guys went crazy on the sidelines during the game. We have had fun with it all week already. There’s been some enhancements on that that hit and stuff in some of the videos we’ve been playing,” Carroll said. “But he’s gonna get reputation here pretty quick that you better watch out because he’s hunting guys up. He’s so powerful and explosive. It’s really fun to see that. It just brings the attitude that we love the offensive side.”

Monday is the first primetime game of the year for the Seahawks, and also the first primetime NFL game for Seattle’s rookies.

Carroll was asked about getting the younger players ready for that.

“That really it’s five o’clock for us on the West Coast, so it’s not that big of a deal. To me, that’s not the issue, the timing of it. It’s really just the build up,” Carroll said.

Carroll said that most of these players watched Monday Night Football growing up, and that because it’s the last game of the week, there’s a lot of build up and hype around the game.

“It’s just to maintain the poise through it. Really we want every game, like you hear us say, we want it to be a championship game so that we prepare in championship fashion and we just get used to doing that. And we just keep doing it and doing it and doing it,” Carroll said.

Seattle’s Week 2 win over Detroit can be a big teaching point for the younger players, Carroll said.

“There’s some teaching done from the from the Lions game (because) there’s never going to be a stadium that’s going to be any crazier than (that) in the regular season,” he said. “… It’s not going to be any louder than that, and we won on the last drive of the game and executed while they’re screaming at us the whole time. So we take that lesson and try to build their awareness that we’ve been here before, we know what this is like, and we’re going to play it the same way we would play the Super Bowl. And so when the Super Bowl comes, we play like that there, too. That’s the thought. I don’t know if it’s worth a darn, but that’s what we’re working at really hard.”

Listen to this week’s Pete Carroll Preview at this link or in the player near the top of this story.

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