Carroll to 710-AM: Russell Wilson has sprained MCL, recovery already going “exceedingly well”

Pete Carroll told Seattle’s 710-AM radio Monday morning Russell Wilson has a sprained medial-collateral ligament in his left knee and that the quarterback’s recovery is already going “exceedingly well.”

“That’s what he has, and he’s responded beautifully to it,” the Seahawks coach said on his weekly day-after-game radio show with Mike Salk and Brock Huard. “We’ll see in a couple days if anything changes with that.

“But first report, getting up in the morning, getting up in the middle of the night and doing his rehab, that went exceedingly well.”

Carroll said Wilson had a magnetic resonance imaging exam Sunday night hours after Wilson got hurt in the third quarter and Seattle finished a 37-18 rout of San Francisco. The test showed the MCL sprain.

The MCL is the ligament on the inside of the knee that keeps the knee from bending inward.

Wilson injured that ligament when San Francisco linebacker Eli Harold grabbed him from behind and pulled him down with an illegal horsecollar tackle. The quarterback’s left knee and leg crumpled under him, and Wilson stayed down while trainers ran onto the field. He watched from the Seahawks’ sideline with a brace and heavy wrap on his knee as undrafted rookie backup Trevone Boykin played the final 21 minutes of the game

Carroll said Wilson jumped on his rehabilitation immediately Sunday night with ice and other treatment -- just as the quarterback that has never missed a start in his five NFL seasons did the night of Sept. 11 in the hours after he sprained his right ankle in the season-opening win over Miami.

“He’s moving around walking fine. Can’t tell anything (happened).”

Carroll acknowledged it’s a consideration to rest Wilson against the Jets so he can couple that rest with the team’s subsequent bye week. But knowing Wilson, the fact he’s played in 77 consecutive regular-season and postseason games to begin his career, the fact he briefly went back into Sunday’s game on his own to finish the drive -- and taking the totality of what Carroll said following Sunday’s game (”most likely he’s going to be fine”) and again to 710-AM Monday morning, Wilson’s likely playing Sunday against New York.

“I anticipate he’ll be in brace on game day,” Carroll said. on 710-AM.

The coach said there were six doctors examining Wilson’s knee after the injury stabilize it.

"I felt fine. I felt strong enough that I could play on it, and I can tolerate pain a little bit, pretty well,” Wilson said following Sunday’s game. “It was one of those things that we were up by, I don’t remember the score at the time, I think it was (27-3) at the time. So it just was like, come out and try to put some ice on it, treating it and getting it as good as I can for next week hopefully.

”We’ll figure all that out. But it’s good news. It’s not terrible news."

This story was originally published September 26, 2016 at 10:19 AM with the headline "Carroll to 710-AM: Russell Wilson has sprained MCL, recovery already going “exceedingly well”."