The Seahawks though they were at full strength in their defensive secondary heading into Saturday night’s NFC divisional playoff game against Carolina, but the ended up playing down a man, and the absence of Byron Maxwell was noticeable.
Maxwell missed practice on Wednesday because of illness, but after he was able to return to action Thursday, the Seahawks thought he was OK and listed him as probable for the game, but because of what Pete Carroll described as “chest complications with a cold that he had,” Maxwell did not play at all on defense. He did do limited special teams work, playing on the punt-return team, but Seattle’s usual starting right cornerback stayed on the sideline the rest of the evening.
“He just didn’t feel well enough,” Carroll said. “We thought he would come out of it — he was sick during the week — and he just didn’t feel well enough to contribute on a steady basis. He participated on special teams, and was available to us if we needed him in nickel, but really, he just didn’t feel well at all.”
Asked if Maxwell would be OK for next week’s NFC championship game, Carroll was non-committal.
“I don’t know that,” Carroll said. “I was kind of surprised he couldn’t rally tonight. We went in thinking he would be able to go; he practiced Thursday and looked OK there, he just couldn’t shake it.”
With Maxwell out of the game, Tharold Simon started at cornerback, and Carolina targeted him frequently, having success going his direction, including two touchdown catches for rookie Kelvin Benjamin.
“It was a hard night,” Carroll said of Simon. “He had a lot of work, and he had no help at all. Scheme-wise, we were so tucked in for the running game and all the things that Cam presents to us, that he had to hang out there by himself, and they worked it pretty good and did a nice job… he survived the game and his confidence was strong. He knew that was a hard night because they kept working the ball underneath him.”
Seattle had two players leave the game with injuries, rookie receiver Paul Richardson, who landed hard on his left knee while attempting to catch a deep pass from Russell Wilson, and center Max Unger, who had a Carolina player fall into his legs in the fourth quarter. Unger, who had missed the previous six games with a high-ankle sprain, injured the same ankle, but Carroll sounded optimistic this injury might not be as serious.
“Max did roll his ankle a little bit, the same one he had injured,” Carroll said. “He felt pretty good once he got into the locker room, so maybe it was a bit of a scare right there, we’ll see. We don’t know, we’ll see what happens.”
Carroll didn’t know the severity of Richardson’s injury, though possibly concerning is that Carroll noted it was the same knee Richardson had surgery on while in college.
“Paul sprained his knee, the knee he’s had worked on before,” Carroll said. “So we’ll see. We’re not sure, sometimes you can’t tell on the tests right now, but he’s pretty sore it looks like.”
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