Seahawks Injury Updates: Latest on Geno Smith, Devon Witherspoon

Dec 11, 2023, 12:51 PM

Seattle Seahawks QB Geno Smith looks on from the sidelines on on Dec. 10, 2023. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Seattle Sports

The Seattle Seahawks needed to turn to backup quarterback Drew Lock on Sunday, with starter Geno Smith inactive due to a groin injury suffered late last week in practice.

What’s to make of Drew Lock playing solid in first Seahawks start?

Will Seattle have Smith back in time for its next game, a Monday Night Football meeting with the Philadelphia Eagles on Dec. 18?

It’s still too early to tell, though Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll had a positive outlook on Monday.

“Give me a couple days where I don’t have to decide that, and also find out what’s going on here,” Carroll responded when asked by Seattle Sports’ Mike Salk if Lock will be getting reps with the first team in practice this week. “We’ll figure out where Geno is. I think Geno is gonna be pretty good though, because he could run around.”

What Smith couldn’t do, however, was run at 100% effort, which is why he did not dress after going through a workout on the field to test his injury prior to Sunday’s loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

“He couldn’t go. He couldn’t run full-speed,” Carroll said. “He could run around, jog around, but when he had to push off in one direction away from his groin, the soreness, he couldn’t fire, so he couldn’t play. It really came out pretty clear. He was fighting the whole way, he was going, his mentality was exactly what it was supposed to be, and he knew he couldn’t (play). It was clear. So we’ll go another week and we’ll just go day after day and see what happens. … He could have gone out there and played, (but) one step and he’s out – what good would that do, you know?”

Carroll added that it can only help that the Seahawks have an extra day of rest before the Monday night game.

How did the injury happen, exactly? Carroll filled us in on that.

“He finished a throw in practice, and one of our guys was just kind of crossing behind him and just clicked his heel a little bit, and he stumbled, and in that stumble step he jolted his leg into the ground and (it) jabbed his groin,” Carroll said. “You know, it wasn’t a violent play in any way, it wasn’t a violent accident in any way, just an unfortunate kind of thing that happened to him. He got caught by surprise and landed funny. He didn’t even fall, I don’t think. He just took a weird step.”

Devon Witherspoon status

On Monday’s Pete Carroll Show, the Seahawks coach had one more injury update to share. Carroll clarified that standout rookie cornerback Devon Witherspoon left Sunday’s game with a hip pointer, not a rib injury as was first thought.

Tackling was an issue for Seattle against the 49ers, and Carroll said the loss of Witherspoon was a factor.

“We missed him. He is such a good football player, such a good tackler, situational player. We missed him in that game,” Carroll said. “You could tell, there’s plays that he would have made in a special fashion that could have made a little bit of a difference. It’s unfortunate. He came out, knocked that ball down on that play, was a terrific play he made when he got hurt. He was just getting warmed up.”

The Pete Carroll Show airs at 9:30 a.m. the following weekday after each Seahawks game, making up the final half-hour of that day’s edition of Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. Listen to this week’s full Pete Carroll Show in the podcast at this link or in the either the video or audio player near the top of this post.