Pete Carroll Monday Press Conference notes

Pete Carroll spoke to the media on Monday, and I took some notes. Originally published on Reddit.

Pete Carroll:

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• Coming off the break it is exciting to get back to football. We benefited from the rest. We will come back pretty darn healthy this week. Big matchup Sunday night. We gotta get our work ethic back in order, that starts today, guys came back fired up and ready to go.

• Ricardo Lockette is flying in with his family tonight. Won't see him until probably tomorrow.

• Pete Carroll says Ricardo Lockette returning to Seahawks facility tonight. Says he has "considerable recovery" ahead. "All the reports have gone well..He has a great spirit."

• Jeremy Lane did well. He practiced in a limited fashion; he will do more than that on Wednesday. He looked really quick and comfortable and all that. Great to get him back. Pete Carroll: "It's possible" nickel DB Jeremy Lane comes off PUP list to play Sunday vs Arizona. Wait and see though, one day at a time and see how he recovers.

• Russell Okung practiced today and looked good.

• Thinks Cliff Avril and Luke Willson will work Wednesday. They had a good week. Luke had a particularly good week coming back. Expect those guys to practiced limited on Wednesday and expect them to play.

• Leave the red zone issues and offensive issues in the first half of the season. Want to leave those stats in the past and do something special in the second half.

• Would love to get Jimmy Graham more looks in the red zone.

• Think Paul Richardson is going to work to find his fit in the rotation. Last week when he practiced and the week off he is ready to go now. He is battling for playing time right now, That is a really good sign. We will see how that goes. When we finished off with him before he got hurt he was really figuring in. We are excited to see what he can do and see how he can push the other guys.

• The Cardinals have an unusual defensive scheme, really aggressive and come at you from all angles. Take risks others don't. Hence the 7 sacks the first time we played them last year, but after that experience we adjusted and did better in the second game of the season.

• Carroll said Carson Palmer is playing "phenomenal" football and "looking as good as he's ever looked."

• Earl Thomas has been right on it. Has been really consistent, our guys are doing great on defense not allowing explosive plays and that has to do with what Earl does in the passing and run game.

• The O-line is getting better. The running game seems to have improved and caught stride a little bit. The tempo at the line of scrimmage and it looks more like we are accustom to. Last week we had the best performance protecting the passer, hopefully we can build off of that. Pete is encouraged, but we need to show it again.

Relevant Tweets:

• @gbellseattle Michael Bennett asked recovering teammate Ricardo Lockette "Can you still have sex? He said yeah. I said, 'So you're good, man!'" #Seahawks

• Russell Okung after staying back at Dallas hospital with Ricardo Lockette last wk "He's an even better person than he is a player" #Seahawks

• @Curtis_Crabtree Michael Bennett said Bruce Arians is one of the few coaches in the league he'd want to play for. Asked why, he said "It's the hat."

• @SheilKapadia Seahawks scoring TDs on 29.4% of their red-zone trips. If that number holds, would be 2nd-worst mark of any NFL team in the past 5 years.

My Thoughts:

• Man it is awesome to get this bye week during Week 9 of the season. We needed it. I am excited for the idea of us coming out and (i'd have to imagine) having one of the healthiest teams in the NFL who are rested and ready to play three straight home games, starting off with the critical game vs the NFC-W leader. I hope (and expect) that adjustments have been made after reviewing the tape of the first half of the season to our offense (and most likely our defense and special teams as well). The coaches know how poor the red zone efficiency has been and know the 3rd down conversion issues as well. They also are aware of how Jimmy is not being utilized in the red zone well enough. Do I expect everything to just pop into place and us dominate 3rd down and red zone situations? No, but I expect to see better decision making, better play calls, and hopefully better execution. So in the next four games we see the stats for 3rd down conversions and red zone scoring on the upward trend.

• I am super excited for this upcoming game because it is the make it or break it moment for our season. The team has been through a lot and fought their way back to .500, they got a bye to rest and heal, time for the coaches to adjust their schemes and decision making... now it is the second most important game of our season coming up. The Cardinals with their good defense, their very good offense...it will be a real test, is our O-line actually legit or just played good against the 49ers and Cowboys? Is our run game going to get fully back on track and Marshawn get his yardage and TD('s)? Will our 3rd down conversion issues and red zone efficiency issues look as bad as the past 8 games or look good?

• Be prepared if we win to be back in the national media conversation as a team to be scared of (if you are one of the other 15 NFC teams) because we just beat the NFC-W leader (hopefully in a impressive showing) and look to be getting hot and on a run to being a Super Bowl contender yet again. Not only will our stock jump up but with our team being the first real test for the Cards and them losing, their stock will fall down a bunch. However if we lose be ready to basically be written off in the national media conversation, and they wouldn't be completely wrong. A win against us would legitimize the Cards to a point they haven't been yet and would make our path towards even a wild card very difficult.