Seahawks confident Drew Lock can keep their season alive, if Geno Smith can’t go
News Provided by The Athletic
The short-term future of the Seattle Seahawks’ quarterback position is uncertain because of a fluky play in Thursday’s practice that resulted in Geno Smith injuring his groin, and Drew Lock taking his place in a 28-16 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
“(Smith) finished a throw in practice, and one of our guys was crossing behind him and just kind of clicked his heel a little bit and he stumbled,” coach Pete Carroll said Monday on Seattle Sports radio. “And in that stumble step, he jolted his leg into the ground and jabbed his groin. It wasn’t a violent play in any way, it wasn’t a violent accident in any way, just an unfortunate thing that happened to him. He got caught by surprise and landed funny. He didn’t even fall, I don’t think, just took a weird step.”
Smith’s pregame workout at Levi’s Stadium revealed that he was too physically limited to play against San Francisco. Carroll said Monday that Smith can throw and move around but feels soreness when trying to push off away from the side of the injury, which could impact Smith’s ability to open up and run, throw on the move or change direction.
The Seahawks, who don’t play until Monday night against the Philadelphia Eagles, won’t practice until Thursday. That gives them a few days before they must decide which passer will take the first-team reps in preparation for the first of four must-win games to close the regular season.
“We’ll see how he comes back,” Carroll said of Smith. “These couple days right here are so invaluable for him, getting all the treatment he gets, and just the rest time.”
Sunday’s game marked Lock’s first start since the 2021 season. He completed 22 of 31 passes for 269 yards and two touchdowns along with two interceptions. Seattle (6-7) lost its fourth straight game — the longest losing streak of the Carroll era — and is in ninth place in the NFC with the fifth-place Eagles (10-3) coming to Lumen Field on Monday night.
If Lock makes a second start against the Eagles, he’ll do so fresh off what his teammates and coaches felt was an encouraging performance against the 49ers.
“Drew did everything he could,” tight end Noah Fant said. “I was proud of the way he played. He may have had some picks or whatever it may be, but we were in the game at the end, and that’s all you can ask for from a quarterback.”
Lock went out of his way to thank offensive coordinator Shane Waldron for calling an aggressive game. When a player goes that long between starts, play callers can be conservative out of caution, but, “He was not that way with me tonight, and I appreciate him for doing that,” Lock said.
Waldron’s first call was a screen pass out of an empty formation. After a run to Ken Walker III moved the chains, Waldron called a play-action shot play to Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Even though the long ball was nearly intercepted by cornerback Charvarius Ward, Waldron called another pass on second-and-10 that went to DK Metcalf for 21 yards. On third-and-6 later in the opening series, Lock had to hang in the pocket and throw an out route to Tyler Lockett for a first down. The next play was the 31-yard, back-shoulder touchdown to Metcalf.
“That was an awesome feeling,” Lock said. “We just kept capitalizing on the opportunities they gave us on that drive, and I thought DK made a heck of a catch on that play.”
The rest of the game was similarly aggressive, suggesting that Waldron had faith in Lock to make the right decisions and launch the ball down the field when appropriate. Lock averaged 7.6 air yards per attempt, right around the league average among quarterbacks with at least 40 attempts (Lock has thrown 43 passes). One of the only notably conservative calls was a screen pass to Walker on third-and-14 from the San Francisco 18 in the first quarter. But that’s a call Waldron has made before with Smith in the game as well.
Waldron called the plays like a coach who believed his quarterback could be the reason they would win the game; not like he was operating with a backup who needed to dink and dunk the ball up the field while the run game did the heavy lifting. Seattle came up short, of course, but that type of game plan left Lock feeling confident, which is going to be important if he’s asked to start again.
“I can still go out there and do it,” Lock said of what he’ll carry from Sunday into Week 15, if called upon. “It’s been a long time since I’ve started a game. I’m confident in my legs, confident in the deep ball, confident in just dropping back and living in the pocket. Confident that I’m an NFL quarterback. I can take that away and take that into next week if I do get the chance.”
Lock redirected a question about how the lack of explosive runs in the second half impacted the offense, instead focusing on his own mistakes. He lamented starting the third quarter with a ball that got batted at the line of scrimmage, and nearly throwing an interception when his next pass to Fant went into traffic and was dropped by cornerback Deommodore Lenoir. Lock checked it down on third-and-10 to Fant, who came up 1 yard short of keeping the drive alive.
“Two completions were there for me on the field, didn’t get it to the right guy,” Lock said. “We could have converted those and got into a rhythm on our drive coming out of the half.”
Within that same answer, Lock regretted his ball placement on a fourth-quarter interception. Trailing 28-16 with 14:08 remaining, Seattle got a single-high safety look, like it wanted. Lock faked to Walker and launched a deep shot to Metcalf. But rather than lead his receiver to the sideline, Lock put the ball near Metcalf’s inside shoulder, and it went right to safety Ji’Ayir Brown.
“Didn’t get it done,” Lock said. “Left it inside, safety got it.”
Those plays illustrate what Lock can’t afford to do if he makes another start: put the ball where his target has no chance of catching it. The Seahawks just aren’t playing well enough as team to give the quarterback much margin for error. Fair or not, that’s just the reality of Seattle’s situation. The quarterback has to be nearly flawless in his decision-making and ball placement to win games against competent opponents.
The Eagles’ defense is struggling, but it has playmakers who can take advantage of a misplaced ball or a bad read, and Philadelphia’s offense can score in bunches. Lock doesn’t need to put together an All-Pro performance next time out, but he knows he must play cleaner ball than he played Sunday.
On Monday, Carroll said Lock made some “bonehead” throws but was otherwise effective at giving the Seahawks a chance to win.
“There’s gonna be (regrettable) plays for every quarterback every game,” Carroll said. “That was a pretty normal football game, him showing us what he can do and how he can make things happen and be comfortable in the moment. He was very poised about this in a most difficult situation. That bodes well for him down the road.”
Among the 13 quarterbacks to start against the 49ers this year, Lock’s EPA per dropback of minus-0.08 ranks sixth and his 8.7 yards per attempt ranks second, behind only Joe Burrow (all stats provided by TruMedia unless stated otherwise). He also has a more favorable matchup at home against an Eagles defense that ranks 30th in EPA per play, 22nd in success rate and 29th in EPA per dropback. Lock had an average game against the 49ers, but there’s reason to believe he’ll be better against Philadelphia.
The Seahawks would like to have a healthy Smith in the lineup, but Sunday gave them more belief in Lock’s ability to keep their season alive in Smith’s absence.
News Provided by The Athletic