RENTON -- A day of reflection didn't soften Pete Carroll's assessment of his team's loss to the New Orleans Saints all that much.
Carroll was still hard on himself for some of his decision-making that helped put the Seahawks in a hole on Sunday afternoon. He lamented some of the fourth down decisions that didn't pan out and some of the game-management decisions he made in the 33-27 loss to the Saints.
"I was just disappointed. I just didn't feel like I controlled it right," Carroll said on Monday. "And we didn't come through either. We didn't make it. It makes it easy if we convert. I was just disappointed, particularly, I was effected really by the last one when we were backed up with nine minutes left or something. I should have kicked the ball there and played to the next couple series. That was really the one that influenced me.
"We were overcoming from the beginning, got back to sevens (7-7) and here we go. Game starts over again. I needed to stick with that more. The game was a good close game against a good team and that's why... I've got some questions of myself. I've got to do better. I've got to coach better.''
The decision to go for a fourth-and-1 from their own 28 with 9:47 remaining was the one call Carroll really disliked from himself in retrospect. The failed conversion gave the Saints an easy chance to seal the game away with a short scoring drive, which they accomplished.
"At midfield, there's a lot of positives about going for it and making it there," Carroll said. "You're not going to make them all. You know that. It just added up a bit in this one, you know. I get to trying too hard too because I just want it. That's kind of the way I am, you know, so I have to counter that at times.
"That's an OK one to go for it if you're aggressive and you're going for it. That's different and more midfield but late in the game like that, backed up that far, you don't see me do that very often."
Carroll also dove further into his thinking of the final 33 seconds on the first half when the team hit a 54-yard pass from Russell Wilson to DK Metcalf but was unable to get a timeout to attempt a field goal before the break.
"With 33 seconds, you know, you don't have a lot of time. Things got to kind of happen (quick)," Carroll said. "So you want to get something one every play to get a feel for it and the first play, we sputtered a little bit Russ had to dump the ball off (to Nick Vannett). So now it's down, the time's already down, you're not sure if you're going to get anything, is it worth taking a shot and sure enough Russ finds a way to bomb it. Had I known that was going to happen we would have just burned the time out right off the bat. You look back and it's easy now to see what we should have done. We didn't quite get off like we like to at the start of it."
-- On the team's troubles tackling Alvin Kamara
"We missed way more tackles than we have in any other game. It was really on one guy. Kamara was the guy. He did a fantastic job. I think we didn't know him well enough to adjust enough tackling-wise to compensate. He was really good. I thought he was a big factor."
-- On the team still believing in Chris Carson and how they plan to address his recent fumble issues
"Every way possible," Carroll said. "Because we do believe in him, we're going to continue to show him that. He's a terrific football player and we want to make sure and maintain that level of play from him. So we'll work at and work with him on it. There's a lot of technical stuff that's really important, right down to the last instant of that play that he fumbled on there's another thing that he could do to ensure taking care of the ball a little bit longer. He thought he was secure and thought he was taking care of it and bang all of a sudden the ball comes out. That's life you know. That's real in the league and all that. He's going to have to be really on because guys are going to continue to come after him just like anybody would.
"Oh I like the way he's playing. I love the style of play. Out of the backfield he's added to his game. He's still running physical and tough and doing all the things that we're counting on. There's nobody that we'd rather have have the ball in short yardage situations and down by the goal line. He's great at it."
-- On Al Woods' illegal formation penalty that allowed a missed field goal to continue before ending with a Saints touchdown
"It was just a couple inches and it's a new rule and all that and the official stepped in there to really double check it and make sure he saw it," Carroll said. "As I saw him step up I was hoping he was going to pat him on the hip (to tell him), but he didn't. That was a really, really costly penalty. A really costly penalty, unfortunately. It's just a matter of lining up and here's your shoulder. If you're here, it's a penalty. If you're here, you're not. The rule is fine. I don't care about the rule so much but we were wrong."
-- On Ziggy Ansah's debut
"He played really hard. He didn't use a real variety of rushes, just kind of ran in there and played hard and tough. The guy he was going against is really good. He had a couple good rushes. His effort was really consistent. His power was there too. He didn't finesse much. He pretty much just power rushed the whole game and I think if he had it to do again he'd mix it up a little bit. Some of the stuff he came up and under was effective, but there was only a couple. Pretty straight in the game so this was his first game in almost a year so he's just kind of getting going. It would be like preseason game one."
Injury Updates:
-- Left tackle Duane Brown: "He's got a sore biceps, a little bit of strain there. So we just got to wait and see. We'll hold him out a little bit but he says and we're thinking that he'll play but we'll see by the end of the week."
-- Safety Bradley McDougald: "We won't know for a couple more days but it's a slight sprained ankle so he's moving around OK. He's got a chance."
-- Free safety Tedric Thompson: "He's in the mix to try to get back this week. He'll have to show it that he can get the workload and make it through the week, but he's practicing with us this week for sure."
-- Running back Rashaad Penny: "He''ll be able to practice this week too, probably by Thursday to some degree. We need to see if he can tolerate it and what that means. We don't know yet."
Photo Credit: SEATTLE, WA - SEPTEMBER 22: Running back Alvin Kamara #41 of the New Orleans Saints rushes teh ball as linebacker Mychal Kendricks #56 of the Seattle Seahawks and defensive back Tre Flowers #21 during the second half of a game at CenturyLInk Field on September 22, 2019 in Seattle, Washington. The Saints won 33-27. (Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)