Pete Carroll heaps praise upon the play of Tedric Thompson at free safety

The Seattle Seahawks have an ongoing war with Earl Thomas, but Tedric Thompson is doing his best to win the battle.

With Thomas continuing to holdout for a new contract or a trade, and Maurice Alexander missing most of training camp due to injuries, Thompson has done enough to earn first-team snaps at free safety over teammate Delano Hill, who would be slotted as a strong safety with Bradley McDougald moving over to free. While Pete Carroll has seemed a little more blunt than usual in his criticisms of players like Germain Ifedi and Alex McGough, he was unrestrained in his compliments for Thompson during an appearance on 710 ESPN on Tuesday morning:

Carroll did not call Thompson, “a standout” but “the standout” at a time when Chris Carson is just lighting it up. If Carroll is to be believed — and I’m sure conspiracy theorists would argue he’s just building a stronger case against the need for Earl to return — then perhaps the Seahawks actually have found their free safety of the future. And maybe they don’t feel a need for Thomas to return soon.

That being said, I still do expect Earl Thomas to be Seattle’s starting free safety in 2018.

No apparent bad blood between the two, Thompson has been saying that Earl is still giving him guidance and advice while away from the team. He may be grooming him now to not replace him somewhere down the line, but immediately. And while nobody could reasonably argue that the Seahawks will be better off with Thompson and McDougald than they were with Thomas and Kam Chancellor, it seems that they’re at least starting to get comfortable with the idea. That wasn’t something a lot of people were saying even a week ago.

Now Thompson just needs to ride it out for another month.