Defiant coach Pete Carroll is urging his struggling Seattle Seahawks to stick together, insisting their bid to reach a third straight Super Bowl isn’t over yet.
“This season is not done at all,” Carroll told ESPN 710 Seattle radio on Monday, a day after the Seahawks endured their fourth defeat of the season.
Seattle’s vaunted defense allowed Carolina tight end Greg Olsen to race untouched into the end zone for the winning touchdown in the final minute of the Panthers’ 27-23 victory.
The Seahawks have held a fourth-quarter lead in all four of the games they have lost, and with tensions mounting in the locker room Carroll said it was imperative the players remain united.
“To be where we are right now, it puts us in a position of tremendous adversity,” Carroll said after the game. “It calls on us to believe in the guys in the locker room and believe in what we’re doing and hang together until we get things right.”
Carroll acknowledged that not all of the defense received the correct coverage plan in a miscommunication that left Olsen wide open. Key defender Earl Thomas was clearly irked after the game.
“We got half the defense playing this and half the defense playing that. This is what happens when you don’t communicate,” said Thomas, as team-mate Richard Sherman spoke of a “disconnect”.
The Seahawks’ frustrations stretch back further than the start of the season — back to their gut-wrenching 28-24 loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 49 in February.
The Seahawks, who won it all the season before, vowed they wouldn’t let that disappointment derail their 2015 campaign, but they’ve had other distractions in the form of Kam Chancellor’s two-game contract holdout and the two-game injury absence of “Beast Mode” running back Marshawn Lynch.
A team that has long prided itself on its ability to finish has found itself breaking down defensively and flailing offensively late in games.
“We have six games we should have won, and we know that,” Carroll said but added: “What we do about it is what’s important. It’s not what happened, it’s how we’re going to handle it.”
The Seahawks don’t have to wait long for a chance to rebound. They take on NFC West division rivals San Francisco — also 2-4 — on Thursday, and they aren’t complaining about the quick turnaround.
“I’m glad we’ve got a game Thursday,” Thomas said. “We get to get back on the football field.”