After yet another loss Monday night, Pete Carroll admitted how much the Seahawks need Russell Wilson. But the Seahawks won’t have Wilson for at least one more game, maybe longer.
So Carroll knows he needs Geno Smith to play better.
The Seahawks aren’t making a change at quarterback, Carroll said Tuesday on his 710 ESPN Seattle radio show.
“Sure,” Carroll said, via Brady Henderson of ESPN. “Yeah, he is (still starting), and we’re counting on him to just keep getting better and us to play better around him.”
In the 2 1/2 games he has played, Smith has completed 63.4 percent of his passes for 507 yards with three touchdowns and an interception. The Seahawks have lost their past two games -- both starts by Smith -- by three points each.
Smith has had late chances to win the past three games, all losses. Still, Carroll called Smith’s performance this season “solid.”
“He’s managing the game well,” Carroll said. “I would like him to get the football out, be more open to throw the ball away. We talked about it in the locker room after the game. Sometimes those situations happen so fast, and to make that declaration to give up on the play is something that takes experience. That experience for Geno right now, it’s not quite settled in the way he needs to be satisfied with, ‘I’ve got to throw the ball away, we’ve got to punt the football.’ And there’s nothing wrong with that. We took two or three sacks last night that we shouldn’t have taken.”
Jacob Eason is the only other quarterback on the team’s 53-player roster. Jake Luton and Danny Etling are on the practice squad.