Drew Lock just had the night of his NFL life.
He just led a 92-yard drive, the Seahawks' longest touchdown march this season, to beat the defending NFC champions.
Lock just saved the Seahawks season.
"Just BEAUTIFUL football," coach Pete Carroll said.
But Geno Smith is going to continue it.
Carroll made that clear late Monday night after Lock's three exquisite passes to DK Metcalf and his perfect touchdown pass to rookie Jaxon Smith-Njigba with 28 seconds remaining rallied Seattle past the Philadelphia Eagles 20-17 for its first win in more than a month.
Carroll said the team expects Smith to heal from his strained groin that's kept him out of the last two games in time for the 33-year-old veteran to start Sunday in the Seahawks' next must-win game to make the playoffs, at Tennessee (5-9).
"Yes," Carroll said. "Geno is our starter."
He wasn't Monday night, in Seattle's first win since Nov. 12. It avoided the first five-game losing streak of the 72-year-old Carroll's half-century-old coaching career since 1994. That year he lost five straight to end his only season coaching the New York Jets in his first head-coaching job.
He was wearing a headset, team coat and knit cap on the sideline. Yet Smith was vital to Lock rallying the team to win.
Seattle (7-7) was down to 10-4 Philadelphia 17-13 with 1:52 left. The ball was 92 yards from where it needed to be to win, the opposite end zone. The Seahawks were down to one time out, and almost a prayer.
Lock, the turnover-prone "gunslinger," to use Carroll's word from 2022, who had made one start since the end of the 2021 season, had the meaningful part of Seattle's season in his hands.
As Lock was about to take the field, Smith stopped him on the Seahawks sideline.
"You're the best player on the field!" Smith yelled at Lock over the noise inside tense Lumen Field. "You are going to drive us down the field!
"YOU are going to get this done!"
Then Lock completed passes to DK Metcalf, Noah Fant and Metcalf in succession. On third and 10, Lock lofted a long ball down the right sideline. Metcalf made a ridiculous catch of the ball along the sideline with Philadelphia's James Bradberry and a safety sandwiching him. That gained 44 yards, to the Eagles 29-yard line.
The next third and 10 was even more ridiculous. Using the same play in the same man coverage they got on their first drive of the game, Lock threw a perfect ball down the right sideline, past Bradberry and onto the fingertips of Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The Seahawks' rookie first-round pick made a lunging snare in the end zone with 28 seconds remaining.
"I'll remember that play call for the rest of my life," Lock said.
Almost Geno Smith starting
Carroll arrived at Lumen Field expecting Lock to start and Smith to be inactive. Late last week Smith aggravated the strained groin that kept him out the previous week in Seattle's 28-16 loss at San Francisco, when Lock made his first Seahawks start and threw two interceptions. Smith was limping some following Saturday's practice for the Eagles game Monday.
Then Smith tested the groin he first hurt Dec. 7 stumbling over a teammate in practice. With 2 1/2 hours left before kickoff Monday evening, he impressed Carroll and general manager John Schneider with how well he moved.
"Geno came out tonight and really surprised in his pregame workout," general manager John Schneider said on the Seahawks radio network's pregame show.
The Seahawks decided to make Smith active 90 minutes before kickoff, the NFL deadline to do so. Then they spent some time contemplating whether Smith should start, even as Smith stayed in the locker room while Lock took all the pregame reps as the first-team quarterback.
"We really tried to save Geno as much as we could, not overexpose him because it's been such a short span of time since the strain," Carroll said. "We went out tonight to see could he play if we needed him to play in the workout. He looked really good in the workout. That was the one taxing workout that we put him through.
"We knew we could dress him. If we needed him, we could go to him, in hopes we wouldn't have to, so we could buy him another week of healing. It was really too soon."
Smith sat on NFL benches of four teams for seven years before he won Seattle's job to replace traded Russell Wilson before Seattle's 2022 season. He doesn't exactly want to stand and watch someone else play anymore.
So, yes, he fought Carroll to play Monday night.
He lost.
"It was a tough decision. It was as hard as can be on Geno," Carroll said.
"We got him all the way to the point — then say, 'no, dress, be there if we need you. We will go with the other player, see if we can make it to the next week.'"
It all worked out in the end. Almost the very end, with only 28 seconds to spare.
Thanks to the most memorable night of Lock's five-year NFL career, and maybe the 27-year old's football life.
Asked what was going through his mind after his first truly winning moment as a Seahawk, and since 2021 in a career he's likely been wondering about recently, Lock said: "Thousands of things. We'd be here all night to talk about them all."
"I think it was just the over-the-top feeling of you don't get very many moments, you don't get very many opportunities in this league. With every opportunity you get, you need to be as ready as you can be, because you don't get a ton of them. For us to come out tonight and play the way we did and get a win, one of two opportunities I had this year to start, I was excited. I was emotional.
"I was emotional for myself, but I was emotional for these guys in this locker room. It's been a rough couple weeks. We needed a win to pull us back, get our spirits back up. That's what we did here tonight as a team. We did it as a team."
And Smith did it for Lock.
Drew Lock thanks Geno Smith
Lock went out of his way to praise Smith for supporting his backup.
"That's like an unsung hero in these last two weeks. The encouragement he's given me, the pep talks here and there, helping in the film room," Lock said. "It was cool when roles flipped: I was going to have to be the starter, he was doing the same thing for me as I was trying to do for him.
"That's just an unselfish dude in there. I appreciate him more than words can describe. Talking to me before the 2-minute...it's really cool.
"Just awesome."
