Rookie QB gives the coaches the final say on who starts for the Seahawks.

Geno Smith has deferred to Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks coaching staff when deciding whether to play on Thursday night.

“We’ll observe the outcome. Two days prior to the Seahawks’ pivotal NFC West race game against San Francisco, Smith stated on Tuesday, “That’s up to coach.”

After receiving a hard hit from Aaron Donald as he released a pass late in the third quarter of last Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams, Smith left in the second half of the game. Smith’s right arm, just below the elbow, developed a contusion at the base of his triceps.

During the first two drives of the fourth quarter, Smith rested and Drew Lock took command. However, Smith came back for the last drive for Seattle, which put the team in position for a field goal. However, in the dying seconds, Jason Myers missed a 55-yard from goal.

No structural damage was present. Just discomfort and edema. However, Smith claimed that when returning for the last trip, the discomfort was severe.

“Pretty difficult, in a lot of pain, but just tried to go out there and do my best,” said Smith.

Despite finishing 22 of 34 for 233 yards and one touchdown in the Rams game, Smith’s decision-making appeared to be more of an issue following the game than his arm ailment.

In particular, there were concerns over Smith’s decision to use Zach Charbonnet on a run play in the final seconds. With 23 seconds remaining, Smith hit DK Metcalf to get to the Rams 39-yard line. Rather than spike the ball to stop the clock or order a pass play, Smith chose to go with a run to Charbonnet. With only 2 yards gained on the play, Myers was left with a long shot to win the game.

The fact that Smith had to make the play call at the line of scrimmage swiftly and his helmet’s headset wasn’t working added to the difficulties of the situation. Smith stated that while outages can occur periodically, the timing of this particular one was not ideal.

“We believed that we had called the play correctly, and we could have gained additional yards. Not exactly how we had hoped, but that’s something we still need to work on improving,” Smith remarked. “Overall, I´m sound with my decision-making and I feel good about what we did.”

Just a few snaps were played by Lock, one of which was an interception at the conclusion of his second drive. This is the second time this season that Lock has come in for a brief spell while Smith is out with an injury; Lock did likewise a few times in his last season with Denver.

Although starting is by far the hardest position “in sports, in my opinion,” Lock claimed that coming off the bench at any time presents its own special set of difficulties.

“There´s just a lot of things that’re more than just calling a play into a huddle and going and running it,” Lock stated. “You have to shape yourself to fit the genre of the game. You’re thrown into a thousand different circumstances.”