The Seattle Seahawks banded together Sunday in Cleveland, Ohio to overcame a 20-18 halftime deficit on their way to a character building 32 to 28 in over the Cleveland Browns. The win was subdued with the somber news that tight end Will Dissly would miss the rest of the season due to an achilles injury.
Dissly’s injury will be a major blow to a team that had been relying on his pass catching ability in the middle of the field. Dissly had 23 receptions second to team leader Tyler Lockett’s 35. Dissly was the team leader with four touchdown receptions one more that Lockett’s three receptions
D-LINE CONTINUES INCONSISTENT PLAY
One area Carroll has been critical is the inconsistent play of his defensive line. Ziggy Ansah, Jadeveon Clowney, Quinton Jefferson, Poona Ford and Al Woods have all had individual performances but the group has not had that break out game as a unit.
The return of Jarran Reed to the team is sure to provide much needed bang to the unit. Reed was suspended six games for violating the NFL’s Personal Conduct for a domestic incident that occured on April 27th 2017 Day 1 of the 2017 draft. With his trangressions behind him Reed used twitter to tell the world he his ready to return to playing football.
One defensive unit that has taken a forward step in it’s production is the defensive backfield. The Seahawks went into the season having the best linebacking corp in the NFL and that has not changed and the emergence of the defensive backfield as a solid unit makes the Seahawks defense as good as any in the NFL. Against the Browns Tedric Thompson, Tre Flowers and K.J. Wright all had interceptions. While he did not have an interception Shaquill Griffin was given extra praise by Carroll for his play in the Browns game.
OTHER CARROLL QUOTES
On the safeties rotating through:
“We wanted to see (Seahawks S) Lano (Hill) get some playing time. He wasn’t in the dime package. We wanted to get (Seahawks S Marquise) Blair some work. He deserved it. He has been working hard and otherwise, he is just sitting there forever and doesn’t have a chance to get in the game. We just wanted to see what they’re doing and how they fit into the scheme, and if there’s things that we can do. We’re still searching to get it right. I’m not impatient about that. I keep telling you guys we’re still working at it. We’ll figure it out. We’re not even halfway through this thing yet so we have a long way to go.”
On being 5-1 and the reason for the resiliency:
“I’m going to go right back to what I’ve been saying. We have really good leadership from the guys that have been around here, Russ and Bobby, in particular and then there are a number of other guys that keep things on track. The messaging that I am trying to get across to players, they are helping with all the time. They know who we are and what we are all about. They are teaching and leading by example and doing a wonderful job there. The overall attitude and the mentality that our whole group has in this locker room is that these guys are all together. They are connected. They care. They are playing for one another and they get it. They understand how valuable that is and they keep showing up. That is why you make it through the tough stuff.
That is why you can hang and have everybody firing in the same direction. When we make an error, somebody pulls that guy up and fixes it and helps him. That is why we have been so positive for months and months about this team and feeling and sensing that this makeup is part of it. Every game has been hard. We have only had one game where we won by more than a touchdown. These are character-builders and they’re going to make us better. The tougher, the better for us. We need all of these challenges. We need all of the situations that happened today. A million things happened today and we’ll learn from all of them. We’ll just keep on chopping wood.”
