Seahawks’ Pete Carroll Blames NFL For Injury Caused To Geno Smith

When the Seahawks practised Monday, quarterback Geno Smith was back in his normal location, leading the offence through its early conditioning drills.

It was more indication that Smith evaded serious damage after being attacked from behind in the second quarter of last Monday’s 24-3 victory against the New York Giants.

Seahawks’ Pete Carroll Blames NFL For Injury Caused To Geno Smith

Smith had to sit out the final two series of the second quarter to have his knee and ankle evaluated before returning for the second half due to the collision.

“He’s OK,” coach Pete Carroll said simply after the team’s first practice after its bye week on Monday.

Even nine days later, Carroll is still bothered by the play that hurt quarterback Geno Smith during the Seahawks’ Monday Night Football thrashing of the Giants.

The Giants’ Isaiah Simmons grabbed Smith from behind and dragged him down, swinging in behind Smith with his knees. Simmons landed on Smith’s back legs, injuring him.

In fact, the league’s competition committee considered it last year after a few prominent injuries occurred as a result of such a tackle. The NFL Players Association’s objection was one of the reasons the league did not act.

In a statement released in March, the NFLPA stated that outlawing such a tackle would be “unrealistic to implement” and “places defensive players in an impossible position by creating indecision in the mind of any tackling player, places officials in an unreasonable situation that will result in inconsistent calls on the field, and confuses our fans.”

Smith, on the other hand, stated his position in an interview with ESPN following the game, labelling the tackle a “dirty play” with “no place in this sport for that.”

“Yeah, I did,” Carroll said, via the News Tribune. “It’s a tackling situation that was heavily scrutinized last year.” Then, we heard a lot of opposition from the player’s side of it and all about that tackle that occurred, and we did not act on it as a league.”

“I’ve already been in contact and talking about it, trying to get some feel on where everybody is on it,” Carroll said, per the News Tribune. “But the league had decided last year to not act on changing that (kind of play to a penalty). It’s kind of the horse-collar tackle that in the pocket is different, and so I’m not going to sit and entertain (that) malicious (was) done or not going to say any of that.

“I just think we need to talk about that again and it’s a topic that I hope we’ll bring up when the season is over.”

 

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