The Seattle Seahawks open their 2016 season Sunday when they host the Miami Dolphins at CenturyLink Field. One of the big stories of Seattle’s season is the offensive line, where the team has new starters at four of the five positions. Here’s Seahawks coach Pete Carroll on Wednesday discussing the offensive line:
Pete Carroll on the O-line from Everett Herald on Vimeo.
Some other things worth noting from Wednesday:
– Running back Thomas Rawls briefly returned to action in Seattle’s final preseason game, carrying the ball twice for seven yards. Rawls has been recovering from a broken ankle and ligament damage which ended his 2015 season, but he’s been declared ready to play Sunday. However, will he be limited in any ways?
“Just in the amount of plays,” Carroll answered. “It’s his second preseason game, if you look at it that way. We’re going to try and take care of him, as we said all along, in every way that we can. We’re just going to watch to see how he does, how he handles it. That’s all. It’s just to see how he handles it. That will be the only restriction, is how he’s taking the rigors of the game.”
The Seahawks have a viable alternative at running back in Christine Michael, who looked great in the preseason while averaging 6.0 yards on 26 carries, and at this point it’s more like the Seahawks have No. 1 and No. 1A, rather than a starter and a back-up. Michael is sure to pick additional carries with Rawls limited, and Carroll even expressed his preference for using a platoon at running back over a primary back.
“I think basically you get a couple guys and you get it going, so that you can feed off those guys,” Carroll said. “I thought our days at [USC] really showed that, that we had multiple guys who could play with different strengths, and sometimes one guy was more effective on a day than another guy. We never played favorites, we just played the guy who was hot. I think the ability to mix guys gives us more flexibility and a higher level of play, too. But I do really appreciate the guy who just needs to be out there and stay out there and keep digging and he gets more instinctive as the game goes on. I’ve got that understanding, too, but I think all-in-all in the course of a long season like we have, it’s better to have guys who can feed off one another. I’ve always enjoyed that, I have no problem with that.”
– One interesting development on Miami’s side is the revelation that the Dolphins will fly to Seattle on Thursday in advance of Sunday’s game. That’s a day earlier than teams typically travel cross country for games, and it means the Dolphins will have nearly 72 hours in Seattle prior to the start of Sunday’s game. Miami coach Adam Gase, who’s in his first year as an NFL head coach, explained:
“[It was] just kind of some of the research that we did with some guys in other sports as far as guys going from east coast to west coast,” Gase said. “With this being the first game of the year we’re actually able to do it. We felt like if we could get out there a day earlier than we normally would do, we’d totally have a chance to get our guys out there to practice and use that Thursday as a travel day. So we’re able to do a short meeting on Thursday, jump on the plane, get there, get guys moving around a little bit, then practice Friday and Saturday do our walkthrough. We just wanted to give our guys the best chance to feel as good as they could heading into Sunday.”
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