Something to be thankful for: Pete Carroll expects Geno Smith back for TNF

In addition to the obvious brutality of yesterday’s defeat, the Seattle Seahawks suffered through a scary injury to Geno Smith. On Monday, Pete Carroll spoke to some of the concern over whether or not this would impact his ability to be ready to go for Thursday night, when they will return home to take on the San Francisco 49ers. Fortunately, it sound like Smith is trending in the right direction, even if he is dealing with some lingering soreness. Carroll elaborated on this during his weekly radio show, as he was quoted by John Boyle on the official Seattle Seahawks team website as saying the following:

“We don’t know much today yet,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said on his weekly show on Seattle Sports 710AM. “But it was a good sign that he could get back in and throw. He’s going to be more sore today, we’ll see how he responds the next couple of days, but it was a good sign that he was functional and could throw the football all right, so it was a good job by him getting back out there.”

Carroll later added, “It’s just seeing how soon it settles down, but it’s a good sign that he’s functional, that’s not the issue, it’s just how sore he is. He’ll make it back.”

Asked if that meant make it back for Thursday’s game, Carroll said, “I would think so.”

Carroll described the injury as a contusion and said there is not believed to be any further damage to Smith’s elbow.

“He got hit on the tendon on his triceps, the bottom of his triceps, that’s where the helmet hit the back of his arm,” Carroll said. “So he had a contusion there, they don’t think there’s any damage other than that. But we’ve got to see how much it swells up. The docs were all over him all through the flight last night and all of that, so he’s getting all the treatment he can get.”

This is tentative reason for optimism, but clearly worth monitoring during the short week. I want to commend Drew Lock for what he does, but I DO NOT want to see him under center when they take the field on Thanksgiving for their first of two games with the Niners — both of which could have a big impact on their playoff positioning. Hopefully, Geno is ready to go so we will see less of this: