Seahawks coach Pete Carroll says WR Tyler Lockett has ‘great surgery’ to repair broken tibia and fibula

Seahawks receiver Tyler Lockett had surgery Saturday night to repair a broken right fibula and tibia suffered in the second quarter of a 34-31 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, coach Pete Carroll said Monday during his weekly radio show on ESPN 710 Seattle.

Lockett was injured when tackled at the end of a 28-yard reception near the goal line by Arizona’s Brandon Williams.

Carroll said because bones broke through the skin there was some worry about infection and the surgery was done as quickly as possible. Carroll said the surgery, which included putting a rod in the leg to secure it, wasn’t completed until 4 a.m. Sunday.

But Carroll said all went well, calling it “a great surgery’’ and said Lockett could be “up and moving and working’’ in 4-6 weeks. “He’s got a chance to have a great recovery,’’ Carroll said, predicting “he’ll beat all the time records on time frames coming back.”

That wouldn’t mean Lockett could play again this season, and it’s likely the team will put him on injured reserve to open up a spot on the 53-man roster.

But the fact that Lockett could be up and working out that quickly would seem to bode well for a recovery for the 2017 season.

Carroll said the injury was “above his ankle’’ and said it was the “tibia and fibula.’’

Carroll also said it’s unclear if the Seahawks will have running back Thomas Rawls for Sunday’s regular season finale at San Francisco.

Rawls did not play the second half with what Carroll said is a bruised shoulder after rushing for eight yards on eight carries in the first half. Alex Collins replaced Rawls in the second half and would likely get the start if Rawls cannot play.

Asked if Rawls can play this week Carroll said “I don’t know that yet’’ and said Rawls has yet to have an MRI to determine the extent of the injury to his shoulder.

“I don’t think it’s bad,’’ he said. “But he did get banged (on the shoulder).’’

Here are a few other notes from the show. …

• Carroll said the Seahawks held a special team meeting last Wednesday to address the Richard Sherman situation (when Sherman criticized offensive coaches following the win over the Rams the week before) and a few other things that had erupted. Carroll called it a rare occurrence to hold such a meeting, saying he holds them “just when we need it.” He said the intent was “to make sure we were moving ahead, moving forward. … I thought it was worth the timing to do it then. There was a lot of other stuff we dealt with there. But that was part of it.” Carroll said he felt the meeting had its intended effect and said the Sherman situation “wasn’t a factor’’ in anything that happened during Saturday’s loss to the Cardinals.
• Carroll said he didn’t necessarily think about trying to run more time off the clock before Seattle scored to tie the game with 1:00 left (which would have put the team ahead had Steven Hauschka’s PAT been successful). One reason he said was “believing in our defense. … I think you’ve got to score and do it.’’ He said he can’t really remember ever intentionally not trying to score for a play or two to run time off the clock. “There’s been times I’ve said go ahead and run it at them with the idea we could run it,’’ he said. “But never with the thought to delay it.’’
• Asked about the lack of targets for tight end Jimmy Graham — he had two receptions on three targets – Carroll said “it just didn’t go that way’’ and wasn’t by design. He said one factor was that the Cardinals were “rerouting him more at the line of scrimmage than we would like.’’ But he also said the ball went to Doug Baldwin as often as it did — 19 of the team’s 44 targets — because he was getting open against what he said the team knew would be some advantageous matchups against a beat-up Arizona secondary. “We would love to get (Graham) the ball more,’’ Carroll said. “It was just going to Doug more in this game.’’