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Seahawks future Hall of Fame free safety Earl Thomas broke his leg on Sunday night in a brutal collision with teammate Kam Chancellor. This injury cast a pall over an otherwise impeccable 40-7 win over the Carolina Panthers.

Seriously, everything else about this game was good. After one of the worst performances of Russell Wilson’s career, the offense bounced back with a stellar all-around performance. Tyler Lockett and Thomas Rawls played like we hoped they would coming into their sophomore years, and the Carolina Panthers who played the Seahawks tough so many times in the Pete Carroll era, capitulated.

But Sunday was about Thomas, who will be out for at least six weeks to six months with a broken tibia. It’s a nasty injury, usually seen in soccer after dirty slide tackles. The impact in soccer is huge, guys rarely can return from a shin break and play at a high level. But soccer is a very different sort of game than football, requiring much more precise lower body movements. Sounders star Steve Zakuani suffered an injury like this one, which was complicated by compartment syndrome, and while he played again, he never reached the same heights. His speed came back, but his touch was never quite the same. For Thomas? Speed is what matters.

By all accounts, Thomas could be back in six weeks. Right after the diagnosis he tweeted a message mentioning he was considering retiring, but I doubt that will be his mindset after recovering.


For this season, though? Thomas’ absence is a massive blow. Steven Terrell is his replacement, and while he’s fast and athletic, his instincts likely do not compare to Thomas’. That’s no knock on Terrell, but Thomas’ ability to identify what an offense is doing and blow it up from the safety position at any spot on the field is matched by only three or four guys in NFL history. Earl Thomas was a heat-seeking missile.

Terrell has the rocket fuel, his guidance system just isn’t quite as advanced.

This means without Thomas, the Seahawks defense which has been a little more complicated this year, could well revert to being more vanilla. Defensive coordinator Kris Richard has blended man and zone coverages and blitzed more often from the linebacker spot than in previous seasons. I imagine some of that complexity goes away so as to simplify what Terrell’s responsibilities are. Bobby Wagner will stay back on passing downs more often so as to shrink the part of the field Terrell has to man. That’s okay. The Seahawks won a Super Bowl with a similar system.

That’s the football side. The personal side? That’s harder.

Unlike every other member of the Legion of Boom, Earl Thomas is small for his position. He’s weirdly the least Seahawky star on this defense. He doesn’t tackle with perfect form every time, he isn’t freakishly long, he isn’t outspoken. But his unusualness both on and off the field has made him a franchise cornerstone. And despite being small, Thomas had been all but indestructible.

Thomas has only missed one game in his career, two weeks ago when he suffered a hamstring injury. Dude played in the Super Bowl with a torn labrum. And now he’s facing a much worse injury. That must be so hard for a guy who has prided himself on his physicality throughout his career.

It seems impossible that Thomas is out. I was watching the game with some other Hawks fans, and joked that his injury cast a shadow on an otherwise great game like the recent election of Trump has on all of life’s little pleasures. And while that trivializes the very real trouble our country is in, it speaks to how unprepared I and the rest of the fanbase was for Earl to go down. He’s Earl fucking Thomas! You can’t bring him down! Only now… you can. What once was stable is now shaken.

The whole thing is sad. But teams lose guys all the time. Every top team but the Raiders is down at least one superstar. The Patriots lost Rob Gronkowski for the year this week. Which is to say, if you signed up to be a football fan you signed up to watch the people you support get hurt, and if you’re writing off this Seahawks team right now, you’re crazy. They’re in great shape to secure a bye in the playoffs and there's no great team this year. The Raiders is the only very good team to come through the season unscathed by a massive injury thus far. The Seahawks still very much have hope.

That said, having to go and play Aaron Rodgers on the road next week? Not ideal! Not at all ideal.