Earl Thomas appeared to express interest in joining the Dallas Cowboys after his Seattle Seahawks defeated them on Sunday, and his comments have created quite a stir around the league. On Tuesday, Pete Carroll shared his thoughts on the video clip that went viral.
Carroll initially joked in his weekly radio appearance on 710 ESPN in Seattle that he is “up in arms” over Thomas telling the Cowboys to “come get me.” However, he then claimed that Thomas didn’t mean for his remarks to come off the way they did.
“I sat with Earl afterwards and he was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He didn’t think he did anything wrong at all. He didn’t know,” Carroll said, via Brady Henderson of ESPN.com. “He was just having fun and he was really excited about the game. He was a little bit [wanting to] rub it in a little bit and have a good time with it, and then he just said something into the future. When you read it, it comes across bad. But if he had another chance, he wouldn’t say that again.”
Carroll said Thomas does not want fans in Seattle to think he no longer wants to play for the Seahawks.
“He was really concerned about our fans. That was his first [thought], ‘Geez, I don’t want to make them think that I don’t love being here’ and all that,” Carroll added. “So he said what he could say to try to clear it up and all that.”
A video shot by a reporter showed Thomas giving Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett a hug and telling players in the Cowboys locker room to “come get me” if they have a chance. He later claimed he only meant they should pursue him when his current team “kicks me to the curb.” Carroll insists the dialogue looks much different in writing than it actually sounded, but you can be the judge of that.
“He was blown away. He couldn’t believe it,” Carroll said of the reaction. “I was the first one that said something to him because I had heard it in our locker room, and I said, ‘Do you realize what just happened? He said, ‘No, what are you talking about?’ We were sitting on the bench together. I know it bothers people, but we’re OK. We’ll get through it.”
Perhaps Thomas is anticipating that the Seahawks are going to release or trade him this offseason. He recently had a public spat with one of his teammates, and there has been talk about Seattle moving on from the “Legion of Boom” and starting to rebuild their defense.
