Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider both strongly oppose the NFL’s rule that requires teams to make seven players inactive on game day.
Carroll feels that, as long as all 53 players on the roster are getting paid, they should be allowed to help the team each week – especially as the season goes on and players are consistently forced to suit up while dealing with injuries.
“I just don’t understand,” Carroll lamented on Saturday. “I just don’t get it. I just wish we would have all these guys available and they would help us this time of year, they would take plays off of guys, and they’d be healthier. There are some arguments that are kind of old arguments. I’ll always keep clamoring for that. I think it’s the right thing for the players, mostly. That’s what we should be considering. We’re paying them anyway. They’re all getting paid. I don’t understand it.”
Carroll went on to say he doesn’t really understand why the league hasn’t changed this rule, but that he believes it has to do with teams having injured players, which would give them less players than the opposing team.
However, Carroll believes a simple solution would be allowing players to be activated off the practice squad in place of injured players, which still allows each team to have 53 active each week.
“You can take guys off the practice squad, too, which would be great for those guys,” Carroll continued. “It would be the best thing that could ever happen for those guys. If you want to solve the problem, you solve the problem from my perspective. I don’t get what their perspective is, and I respect that.”
The league evaluates rule changes every year, and fans can bet Carroll, Schneider and many others around the league will clamor for a bigger active roster starting in 2020.
