The Seattle Seahawks witnessed a costly rookie mistake from Jalen Milroe Sunday. But that botched pitch and fumble doesn't appear it will hinder his playing time.
Milroe entered for Sam Darnold on a designed option play versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The first-year QB lobbed the ball behind Kenneth Walker III, causing the second quarter turnover after the speed option attempt.
Mike Macdonald watch things unravel from there as Tampa Bay held on for the 38-35 win. But the head coach is opting to continue rolling out the rookie, per Seahawks ESPN insider Brady Henderson.
It's just a matter of when, as Henderson helped explain.
“Macdonald said they have more plays in gameplans for Milroe but either haven’t needed them or haven’t gotten to them,” Henderson posted on the social media website X, formerly Twitter. “He said they'll ‘continue to work it and gameplan for it and call it,' and proceed based on how the games play out.”
Henderson added that the head coach bluntly said “”he’s still very much part of our plans.”
‘Tricky' Part involving Seahawks playing Jalen Milroe
Macdonald clearly is all for giving his rookie more reps, in the effort to avoid diminishing his confidence.
However, Henderson presented a “tricky” scenario involving the QB rotation idea.
“Why this is tricky: Activating Milroe (not as the emergency QB) means de-activating another backup who'd actually play,” Henderson explained. “Hard to justify that for a snap or two a game, especially without results. But also hard to take the ball out of Sam Darnold's hands when he's playing this well.”
Seattle definitely doesn't want to kill its own momentum if Darnold is on his game. The QB1, though, admitted his own costly mistake against the Buccaneers on the back-breaking interception.
Macdonald became the third to admit his own mistake. He blamed himself for the Seahawks' defensive output in the home loss.
The 3-2 ‘Hawks earn a chance to redeem themselves against a surging Jacksonville Jaguars team on Sunday.
