Seahawks face uncertain future after Earl Thomas suffers broken leg
SEATTLE – For 118 games across six and a half seasons, including the postseason and two trips to the Super Bowl, the Seahawks could count on Earl Thomas to provide the most punishing hits and emotional intensity for the NFL’s most feared defense.
Though Thomas’ consecutive starts streak ended last week, when he missed the Seahawks loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a hamstring injury, Seattle now faces the unfamiliar reality of life without Thomas for the immediate future – if not longer.
Thomas suffered a broken lower left leg in Sunday’s 40-7 win over the Carolina Panthers. His season is almost certainly over. But could his career done, too?
Thomas tweeted Sunday evening, while the game was still in progress, that he was contemplating retirement. Most likely it was an emotional, tweet-before-you-think moment from a player not accustomed to missing games. But it’s a thought that should terrify a Seahawks team that has thrived off Thomas’ elite play and intensity for years.
“When you get injured, it becomes very emotional. Sometimes you say things you might not mean. Sometimes you say things you might mean,” safety Kam Chancellor said. “It’s one of those things you just have to let him sit back and breathe. Let him go through his process. People are going to take it how they’re going to take it. At the end of the day, he’s going to make the decision he wants to make, but right now it’s an emotional battle.”
The Seahawks rolled Sunday night without Thomas, who was injured in a collision with Chancellor while trying to intercept a pass off Carolina quarterback Cam Newton in the first half, but the question now for Seattle is how they will fare without him during a playoff run.
With the win against the Panthers, the Seahawks moved to 8-4-1 and remain in control of the NFC West. Currently they would be the second seed in the NFC.
Thomas is the rare type of safety who can impact every play. He can cover tight ends – just ask Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots – chase down wide receivers and lay the most brutal hits on running backs. And he has unrivaled football instincts that have helped him amass 23 career interceptions, including two this year.
Most players in the NFL are replaceable. Thomas is not, no matter how much Seahawks coach Pete Carroll tries to talk up Steven Terrell, Thomas’ replacement.
“You can't make up for it. You just try to find someone who can do half of what [Thomas] does. It's hard to replace a great player, a Hall of Fame-type player. You can't replace those, you've got to fit it where you fit in,” defensive end Michael Bennett said.
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To survive without Thomas, the Seahawks will need more nights like Sunday, when the opponent, this time Carolina, is in disarray.
The game started with Newton, the reigning NFL MVP, on the sideline, a brief benching as punishment by head coach Ron Rivera for a violation of the team’s dress code. That’s a minor rule to break, but it had major ramifications.
Newton’s replacement, veteran Derek Anderson, threw an interception on the first play of the game, setting up Seattle’s first field goal. Newton returned for the next series, but the Panthers could manage just one touchdown – a 55-yard bomb to Ted Ginn Jr. on the first play after Thomas left the game.
The Panthers defense gave up 543 yards of offense to a Seahawks team that somehow managed to score just five points – and only a field goal on offense - last week in a loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“We're a really good team when we put it all together and do what we're supposed to do. We're incredibly talented football team on both sides of the ball, we shouldn't have even given up 7. It was kind of a fluky play,” Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman said.
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Seattle’s offense was markedly better than it was a week ago, thanks in part to the return of starting center Justin Britt and to the improving health of starting running back Thomas Rawls, who missed seven games earlier this year because of a hairline fracture in his lower leg. Rawls rushed for 106 yards and two touchdowns. It was his first 100-yard game of the year after he had four of them in 2015 as a rookie, and his first scores since suffering season-ending ankle injury late last year.
“Just my body, I knew this morning after waking up that I was feeling loose. I felt different. I felt lighter on my feet. I felt like I could make some cuts that I wasn't making at first,” Rawls said.
Rawls said the offense was especially focused this week after such a disappointing performance last week against Tampa Bay. The challenge now for the Seahawks is to consistently play like they did against the Panthers, and how they did last month in a win against the Patriots, without the meltdowns they experienced in road losses to the Bucs and New Orleans Saints.
That will be more difficult now without Thomas.
Seattle head coach Pete Carroll said he won’t sugarcoat what losing Thomas means to his team when everyone reconvenes at the practice facility on Monday. It will be unfamiliar to plan for the Green Bay Packers without Thomas, and to practice without him, but now the Seahawks have no choice. Not this week, and not for the indefinite future.
“He can’t play right now. We have to move ahead,” Carroll said. “Our guys are very mature about stuff like this. They’ll handle it. They’ll miss the heck out of him, but they’ll immediately start pulling for [Terrell] to do his thing. They know that’s the way it has to go.”
Follow Lindsay H. Jones on Twitter @bylindsayhjones.
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