Playing for second place
Dec 26, 2011, 5:23 PM | Updated: Dec 27, 2011, 12:10 am
By Liz Mathews
Despite the Seahawks’ official elimination from playoff contention,
head
coach Pete Carroll doesn’t plan to change a thing heading into Arizona
this weekend.
“No, we’re going after this the way we’ve been going,” Carroll said
during his Monday afternoon press conference. “We’re just getting
going and trying to figure it out, practicing well and putting plans
together. We don’t plan on changing anything. We want to see if we
can finish this thing off right and get a win there.
“It’s going to be very difficult. Arizona is playing great football right
now,
but we’re going for it. We’re not shifting gears, changing and we’re not
going to try to learn a whole bunch in one game off new things. We’re
going to try to finish the year off the way we’ve set our pace here now.
So I wouldn’t look for big wholesale changes and all that. We’re not
doing that.”
Arizona, also now 7-8 on the year, will be playing the Seahawks for
second place in the division and the chance to wrap the season at at
even .500.
“We’re going to try to win the football game,” Carroll responded
Monday, when asked whether or not the backups or younger players
would be given a final opportunity to prove themselves. “To look at
something for the future is not on our minds at all. We want to come
back and play another good game of football. We’ll do that as we go
into preseason next year and with our offseason work and all of that
stuff.”
Carroll said that he knows that fellow head coach Ken Whisenhunt
of
the Cardinal is looking at next Sunday in exactly the same way – finishing the current season on a positive note. So with the intentions
of both team clear, the Seahawks now face an equally hungry team,
and they face them on the road. The Seahawks, however, remain
surprisingly healthy as the season comes to a close.
Only wide receiver Ben Obomanu (knee) and running back
Marshawn
Lynch (ankle) are question marks to start the practice week.
“Ben’s got a little tweak,” Carroll said. “We’ve got to wait and see. We
won’t know until Wednesday or Thursday what’s going on with him. Really, there wasn’t much else. We’ll see on the injury report on
Wednesday. Marshawn’s ankle was a little sore and a couple guys got
banged up a little bit but Obo’s really the only guy that really had an
issue coming out of the game.”
The players have an off day on Tuesday and return to full practice
on
Wednesday to prepare for the season finale this Sunday in Arizona.
