RENTON — Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, in assessing his team’s current situation, reached into his bag, pulled out his copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, then proceeded to repeat the famous sci-fi novel’s mantra:
Don’t panic.
Carroll was pumping the brakes on the rising concern over Seattle’s 0-2 start to the season during his Monday press conference at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center.
Seattle’s 27-17 loss at Green Bay on Sunday night, coupled with the team’s opening day 34-31 overtime loss at St. Louis, means the two-time defending NFC champion Seahawks are 0-2 to start the season for the first time since 2011. That’s the last time the Seahawks failed to make the playoffs.
But Carroll emphasized there’s plenty of time for the Seahawks to recover.
“I’m not really concerned about that at all,” Carroll said about starting 0-2. “I’m concerned about this game coming up (next Sunday against Chicago) and getting going. There’s a lot of games left. I know you like to see everything go perfectly as you roll through this thing, but it isn’t like that and there are great challenges to it. We were 3-3 last year and everybody was wondering, ‘Where are we, what’s going on?’ We hadn’t found our stride yet. Here we are two games, we have to see what happens.”
One would think the numbers would inject a certain measure of urgency into the Seahawks. Seattle has aspirations of reaching the Super Bowl for a third consecutive season, but recent history suggests starting the season 0-2 makes that a difficult proposition. The last team to reach the Super Bowl after starting the second with back-to-back defeats was the New York Giants, who won the big game in 2007.
But starting the season 0-2 isn’t fatal. There are teams that reached the playoffs each of the past two seasons after starting 0-2: Carolina in 2013 and Indianapolis last season. In 2008 three teams made the postseason after starting 0-2 (Miami, Minnesota, San Diego).
Seattle also had a chance to win both its games, holding a fourth-quarter lead in each.
Add in the degree of difficulty of said games — a road contests against a St. Louis team many consider on the rise, followed by a road game against a Green Bay team that was undefeated at home last season and still fuming from losing to the Seahawks in last season’s NFC Championship contest — and Carroll had his finger pointed everywhere but the panic button.
“To play at the level that we’ve played at for the last three years we’ve done a lot of things really well,” Carroll said. “To play at that level you have to, because you’re challenged at every turn. There’s a lot of fine tuning to get that done. There’s a lot of teams that almost get on top, but it’s very challenging. We’re in the fine tuning of it.
“Not getting started well doesn’t mean we’re not going to finish well,” Carroll continued. “We didn’t start well in that game (against Green Bay), then we we’re back in that game. We know better. It’s staying true to the core beliefs we have until they show up and take over. It’s exactly what happened last year and it’s happened in every season I can ever remember when you do have a good year.”
Carroll said he thought the team made some significant strides on offense Sunday. He said the Seahawks’ offensive line did significantly better in pass protection against Green Bay than it did against St. Louis, which allowed quarterback Russell Wilson to get into a rhythm during a third quarter in which Seattle turned a 13-3 deficit into a 17-13 lead.
Carroll also thought his defense did what it could against Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Seattle stayed in its nickel defense the entire game in an effort to limit the reigning NFL MVP, and for three quarters the bulk of the damage Rodgers did came from his hard count, which drew Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett offsides three times and allowed Rodgers free plays. But Rodgers led the Packers on two lengthy fourth-quarter scoring drives.
Ultimately, Carroll found himself lamenting the Seahawks’ inability to finish out either of their first two games, and now Seattle finds itself needing to dig out of an 0-2 hole.
“It’s a difficult 0-2 start for us, but one that challenges us,” Carroll said. “There’s a lot of speculation about it, but I feel we have a lot of good football in us, a lot of good stuff ahead, and we’re very close to doing some really good things. We’re looking forward to coming home, trying to get settled this week and getting started to do this thing all over again.”
Extra points
It appears as though the Seahawks will be facing a backup quarterback in their home opener next Sunday. Multiple outlets reported Monday that Chicago Bears starting quarterback Jay Cutler will miss at least two weeks because of a hamstring injury. If Cutler can’t go Sunday, then Jimmy Clausen would get the start. … Carroll said the Seahawks emerged relatively unscathed from Sunday’s game with regards to injuries. Back-up free safety Steven Terrell suffered a hip-flexor injury, but otherwise Seattle made it through healthy. … Carroll said nothing has changed with regards to the holdout of Pro Bowl strong safety Kam Chancellor. Chancellor’s holdout reached 53 days Monday with no end in sight. DeShawn Shead played in Chancellor’s spot against Green Bay after Dion Bailey started for Chancellor against St. Louis.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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