Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll pointed to a strong workout last week, an existing familiarity with the offense of new coordinator Shane Waldron and a keep football intelligence as being the reasons the team signed former Minnesota Vikings backup quarterback Sean Mannion over the weekend.
“We saw him in a workout about a week ago and he looked great,” Carroll said on Monday. “He really threw the heck out of football.”
Prior to Mannion’s time with the Vikings, he spent two seasons playing for Waldron and Rams head coach Sean McVay in Los Angeles. Waldron, who Seattle hired to replace Brian Schottenheimer as offensive coordinator this offseason, is bringing over an offense largely influenced from the one Mannion is familiar with from the Rams.
Carroll said it took Mannion less than a day to get a strong grasp of the offense under his belt.
“His background with Shane, that he was with them is obvious,” Carroll said. “He’s really smart. Really smart. (Quarterbacks coach) Austin (Davis) would tell you he’s been here a day and he’s already running the offense. He can already call the stuff. I don’t know how a guy can do that. Honestly, I don’t even know how I can do that. Because the terminology isn’t all the same. Conceptually, it’s the same, which he just eats up. So we’ll see what happens. Just liked him enough and then with that background I think he’s a interesting guy for us to bring to camp.
The Seahawks had a strong, stable group at quarterback even prior to Mannion’s addition. Russell Wilson has been an MVP candidate at times during his nine seasons in Seattle. Geno Smith has been entrenched as the team’s backup the last two years, and former seventh-round pick Alex McGough was competing with Danny Etling for third-team reps.
Etling was waived to add Mannion to the roster.
Carroll said the signing of Mannion isn’t an indictment on Smith’s position as the team’s backup. In fact, Smith has been off to a hot start in training camp.
“It didn’t have anything to do with Geno right now. Geno is doing great,” Carroll said. “Geno has had one day after another after another after another. He’s really in full flow of the whole thing. But we’ll see, you know. If we get down where we need a (No.) 3 than the competition is really on and we’ll see how that goes with Alex (and Mannion).”