Carroll talking deeply with Russell Wilson since Trevor Moawad’s death is his Seahawks way
Russell Wilson is seeking a milestone win, one that would be another stamp toward what he wants to become in the NFL: the best who’s ever done it.
A win for the Seahawks (1-0) and their franchise quarterback on Sunday over the Tennessee Titans in Seattle’s first regular-season game at Lumen Field with fans since December 2019 would be Wilson’s 100th in the league. One hundred wins in his 146th career regular-season game would be the third fewest starts to that mark in NFL history. Only Tom Brady (131) and Joe Montana (139) won 100 in fewer starts. Wilson would top Terry Bradshaw (147), Ben Roethlisberger (150), Brett Favre (153) and Johnny Unitas (153).
A win Sunday, off Wilson’s four-touchdown, no-turnover victory at Indianapolis in the opener last weekend, and Wilson would join Peyton Manning (105) as the only NFL quarterbacks to win 100 games by their 10th season. That speaks to the fact Wilson has been Seattle’s starter since the third preseason game of his rookie year, 2012. Sunday will be his 146th consecutive start. He’s never missed one in his 10 pro seasons.
Winning is the only record he says he pays attention to.
“Every day I wake up and tell people, because they’ll ask me: ‘What’s your job, can you explain to me what your job is as the quarterback?’” Wilson said.
“I’ll say, ‘I have one simple job, that is to help the Seattle Seahawks win.’”
Yet this weekend, Wilson’s job is far more complex, more real, than the normal one for a starter at the most intricate position in sports.
He will be doing something he’s never done before in the NFL, or in college at North Carolina State and Wisconsin, or in high school in Richmond, Virginia.
Wilson is playing four days after he lost his best friend.
Trevor Moawad passed away at age 48 Wednesday night in California, following his years-long fight with cancer.
Moawad was Wilson’s mental-conditioning coach the quarterback talked to almost every day. He has been behind every one of those 99 regular-season wins. Plus the only Super Bowl the Seahawks franchise has ever won. Plus the 26 team records Wilson holds.
Plus the lives of kids and their families, the youngest and sickest of the sick, Wilson has visited just about every Tuesday at Seattle Children’s hospital since he arrived for his first Seahawks rookie minicamp, in the spring of 2012.
“He’s been my best friend. We’ve spent so much time together,” Wilson said Thursday. “The highest of the highest, highest moments to some of the lowest moments. To the moments of winning the Super Bowl, to the moment of not winning it, unfortunately, he’s always been there for me. He’s a guy who always gave me perspective, gave me knowledge and insight.
“He was a mental giant — in a cool, cool way.”
Wilson will not forget about Moawad. Not during Sunday’s game while the Titans are snarling mad trying to hit him and avenge their embarrassing, 25-point loss at home last week to Arizona. Not during this Seahawks season.
Not ever.
Pete Carroll knows this.
That is why the veteran coach has talked extensively with Wilson in the hours and few days since Moawad died.
“We have talked about it quite a bit. We had an open discussion about it throughout the week,” Carroll said Friday.
“Trevor has been a long-time associate of Russell, had been a great friend, and a great confidant. It means a lot.
“Throughout the course of the season, with all of the families that follow us, there are so many things that we deal with,” Carroll said. “It’s really just regular life that is what it amounts to, and our guys have to find a way to put it in the right perspective. We have a baby being born today. There’s just stuff happening all of the time.
“It’s really important that we do discuss our situations, be open about it, and listen mostly to the guys about whatever is going on. That’s basically what I’ve been doing. I listened to what Russ had to share.”
Not every coach does that, because not every coach has the time and self-assurance of their place with their team and profession than Carroll does. He turned 70 this past week. He’s the oldest coach in the NFL. His 99 victories with Wilson are the second-most among active coach-quarterback duos in the league (Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin and Ben Roethlisberger have won 128 games together). Carroll and Wilson have the sixth-most wins for a coach-QB pair in NFL history (Bill Belichick and Brady won 219 games in their 20 years together for New England).
Younger coaches trying to prove themselves to their players, their owners who hired them, to the league, they often don’t have the time to get to know players on the intensely personal level Carroll has with his Seahawks for the last 12 years. Younger coaches are too immersed in where the backside blitzer is going to be coming from. If they don’t win games, it doesn’t matter how well they know the quarterback’s wife, his family life, his concerns and interests off the field.
Carroll’s won more games than any coach in Seahawks history (123), and their only Super Bowl title. He has a contract to coach past his 75th birthday, which would make him the oldest coach in NFL history.
He can afford to immerse himself fully in his players’ lives.
For him, that switch from younger coach intensely focused on wins to the bigger-picture mentor and friend who sought to maximize his relationships with players to get the most out of them in football and life began 21 years ago.
The year 2000 is the only one since 1973, when he began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at his alma mater of Pacific, that Carroll did not coach a football season. The Patriots had just fired him following two seasons, the latter in 1999. USC was still a year from hiring him to restore its dynasty, which he did from 2001-09.
“I think coming out of New England was a big change for me,” Carroll said Friday. “When I got the opportunity to be in control of the program at USC is when most of everything blossomed in terms of approach, philosophy, being true to who you are, and authenticity. Maybe that would be the marker you are looking for.”
That marker is what Wilson likely has been seeking in his lengthy talks with his coach heading into Sunday’s game.
“If you really care about the people in the program that you are dealing with, then you are open to whatever you need to be available for,” Carroll said. “I think it’s being true to that relationship.
“I didn’t always know how important it was to care. I was just doing what I was doing.
“I realized that it is a big part of this and that’s why the relationships are important, deep, and meaningful. When you go there, then you can handle anything.”
This story was originally published September 17, 2021 at 4:52 PM with the headline "Carroll talking deeply with Russell Wilson since Trevor Moawad’s death is his Seahawks way."
