The Pete Carroll Show: Evaluating Seahawks’ O-line in win over Bears

Highlights from Seahawks coach Pete Carroll’s appearance on “Brock and Salk” Monday morning, a day after Seattle’s 26-0 win over Chicago:

Evaluating the O-line. Carroll seemed pleased with what he saw from center Drew Nowak in particular and Seattle’s offensive line in general. He said the movement at the line of scrimmage was the best it’s been this season and that it was the first time that it felt like Seattle controlled things up front in the running game. The Seahawks allowed four sacks, but Carroll said the pass protection wasn’t as bad as it may have appeared. He agreed with Brock Huard that quarterback Russell Wilson could have avoided some of the pressure. Carroll: “He had a couple of chances to step up and he could have bought more time and he wheeled out when they were going to push guys by. So that all fits together.”

Chancellor’s impact. Strong safety Kam Chancellor’s return from his holdout coincided with Seattle’s defense returning to form after a pair of uncharacteristic performances to start the season. Carroll was asked about the biggest difference that Chancellor’s presence made for the Seahawks’ defense. Carroll: “It’s confidence. It’s the confidence that he brings that others feel because he’s there. He’s been there before and he knows everything that we’re doing, he’s really good at it. So communication, that is better. But it’s the confidence that they feel because they know if he makes a call they know it’s the right one and they know that he’s going to be there to fill his need there. It’s just a general sense more than anything.”

Lockett’s return TD. Carroll said he gave Tyler Lockett a bit more freedom with his returning Sunday, encouraging him to bring out a kickoff even if he fielded it deep in the end zone. That paid off when Lockett returned the opening kickoff of the second half 105 yards for his second special-teams touchdown of his rookie season. That’s in addition to two return touchdowns in the preseason plus one more as a receiver. Carroll: “He’s going to do a lot of really fun things for us. He’s just getting warmed up. They won’t kick the ball to him very much for a while here now. Pretty soon they’ll stop kicking it to him, but we’ll figure out other ways. He’ll be a great force in that manner as well.”

What happened with Lynch. Carroll had no new information on running back Marshawn Lynch, who wasn’t able to either start or finish Sunday’s game. Lynch missed two days of practice last week with a calf injury and left after carrying only five times due to what the team said was a hamstring injury. Carroll reiterated that Lynch missed pregame warmups and didn’t play until Seattle’s third offensive series because he was having trouble getting ready to play. Carroll: “He just couldn’t get right. He had a calf bothering him, his neck was sore during the week. He came back and practiced on Thursday, had a good day and showed some good signs and then just kinda just didn’t feel quite right. He gets to pregame and meeting with the doctors and all, by the time they got done going through everything – the MRI reports and all that kind of stuff – he just wasn’t on schedule for getting out there. By the time he got through his warmup and all that, he missed the whole pregame. Then when he got out there he just couldn’t get going again. He didn’t feel right so we couldn’t play him.” Also on the injury front, Carroll called it a groin strain that forced nose tackle Brandon Mebane to leave the game, but he had no further update on that.

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