The Seattle Seahawks are taking their time when it comes to who will be named their starting quarterback when the 2022 NFL regular season kicks off, as veterans Geno Smith and Drew Lock continue to battle it out.
Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said that the team will take “all the time we need” when making their decision, adding that there are two and a half weeks between their final preseason game on Friday against the Dallas Cowboys, and the regular season opener against the Denver Broncos, and former quarterback Russell Wilson, on September 12th.
Carrol didn’t say who will start on Friday, but added that Lock will play “a lot.”
“I’m wide open for whatever happens,” Carroll said, according to ESPN’s Brady Henderson. “Geno’s been the guy in the lead position the whole time, and I’ve protected that thought throughout. He’s done a really nice job. He’s been very consistent. So we’ll just see what happens. There’s two more weeks of practice, too, after this. I had a set thought on what we would do with the timeline but that got disrupted, so we’re going to use all the time we need.”
“Today’s a really big day for me to find out what they look like today,” Carroll said prior to practice. “A guy’s coming back from COVID. He made it back two days ago, did fine, made it through yesterday in all the walk-through stuff, did fine. Let’s see how he goes today and see we’ll see where it fits. But I’m not closing the book on anybody competing for their spots. We have two enormous weeks coming up: The finish of this one, [then] next week is a huge week for us and then we come back with another full week and an extra day. So we’ve got a lot of time here to work it out.”
Carrol continued to talk about Lock.
“He played really well,” Carroll said. “His rhythm was good. I go back to the Lumen game, too, because that was the other one we were using for the evaluation. He was really quick with the football. I’d like to continue to see that happen. When it comes right down to it, we missed something right at the end and gave the ball up. I’d just like to see him finish the game and finish making the plays that he’s capable of making. He’s shown a lot of really good stuff. I think he had two of three drives where he scored coming out against [Pittsburgh]. But we’re in a different setup now because of last week’s game.”
Carrol also responded to a question if two quarterbacks would play during the regular season.
“I could go ahead and just call it, but I want to let the guys battle and let them show where they are and let us get as much information as possible,” he said. “Geno’s done a really good job of being in that position. His voice is solid. He’s on point all the time. He’s been very consistent with his work all of that, and Drew has been really sharp. I know it’s not supposed to be a good situation when you have two quarterbacks. It means you don’t have one, is the old saying. I don’t know that. We might have two ones. We’ll see what happens.”
