Pete Carroll on K.J. Wright’s illegal bat: ‘I didn’t know that rule either’

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll says it wasn’t until he was celebrating in Seattle’s locker room that he realized his team had gotten away with a penalty that could have changed the outcome of Monday night’s 13-10 win over Detroit.

Linebacker K.J. Wright had batted a loose ball out of the back of the end zone on the game’s decisive play, unaware that doing so was illegal. Carroll said Tuesday during his conversation with “Brock and Salk” that he wasn’t aware either.

“I would have done the exact same thing. I would have done the exact same thing,” Carroll said. “I didn’t know that rule either. I’ve never even seen it come up and I’ve been coaching for – I don’t even know how many years it is and how many games it could possibly be – I don’t know how anybody would have know that one. If they did, they did.”

Carroll and others who were unaware that Wright’s batting of the loose ball in the end zone was illegal initially thought it was a heady play. He said the Seahawks coach their players to use that type of caution with loose balls, emphasizing that it’s better to bat them out of bounds to retain possession as opposed to trying to corral them. One problem: It’s illegal to do so in the end zone, something neither Wright nor Carroll were initially aware of.

“That’s a very unique situation,” Carroll said. “I’ve been coaching a long time and (played) for years and I’ve never seen that happen before, and really didn’t know to tell him otherwise.”

Carroll conceded that the Seahawks caught a break on that play but said it still would have been a “difficult call” for the official to make in real time, without the benefit of a slow-motion replay. Carroll said he believes that one reason that Wright wasn’t flagged was because his batting of the ball was so subtle.

“It happened so gracefully,” Carroll said. “He just did just a little tap on the ball and it’s over, in the direction it was going; it was going out anyway. So you could see why the guy maybe didn’t see the thing.”

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