Pete Carroll, Seahawks must weigh what’s best for Russell Wilson
Sep 26, 2016, 10:33 AM | Updated: 1:32 pm
Pete Carroll didn't rule out the Seahawks sitting Russell Wilson vs. the Jets knowing their bye is next week. (AP)
(AP)
You want Russell Wilson to miss this next game?
“You tell him,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said Monday morning during his weekly appearance with “Brock and Salk” on 710 ESPN Seattle.
Carroll was joking. Kind of.
But Wilson’s status is going to be the single biggest question the Seahawks deal with this week, ranging everywhere from how much he practices during the week to whether he should play against the Jets with the reality that Seattle has a bye week afterward.
On the one hand, you have a quarterback who is so determined to play that he re-entered Sunday’s game after missing just one snap, having decided that he was OK. On the other hand, you have the reality that if Wilson were to sit out against the Jets, he would magnify the benefit of the Week-5 bye. The player with a sprained right ankle and an injured left knee would go 20 days without the danger of a 300-pound opponent stepping on him or tackling him by his collar or finding some new, novel way to maim him.
To be clear, Carroll didn’t indicate the likelihood that Wilson would miss the game. It would be more accurate to say he didn’t shut the door on that possibility.
“Obviously there’s consideration for that,” Carroll said, then pointing out that an extra week off would help just about every player. “We’ll see what happens. We’ll make sure we do the right thing.”
But before we look at the Seahawks’ options, let’s clarify the situation a little bit.
Wilson suffered a sprained medial-collateral ligament (MCL). Carroll confirmed that diagnosis on “Brock and Salk.” That ligament is the middle of the three four primary ligaments that allow the knee to function. It works like a stabilizer, keeping the knee from twisting in a way that would injure or even rupture the other two ligaments that are on the outside of the knee.
A player with a sprained MCL can be more susceptible to further injury if the joint becomes less stable. That’s the “if” that will go a long way to deciding if Wilson will be available.
“It’s just about if he’s really stable,” Carroll said.
The desire to stabilize the knee is the reason Wilson was outfitted with a brace on his injured leg before he attempted to return to Sunday’s game for a second time.
“I would anticipate he’ll be in a brace for game day,” Carroll said.
