Flynn not complaining about being No. 2 QB for Seahawks

RENTON, Wash. – This is not how Matt Flynn pictured this week playing out. Not at all.

When Flynn signed with the Seahawks back in March, most people assumed – incorrectly, it turned out – that he would be the Seattle’s starting quarterback no matter how much Pete Carroll talked about competition.

When the schedule came out a month later, it was easy to look at Seattle’s “Monday Night Football” game against Green Bay and see the story line unfold. Flynn, the backup to Aaron Rodgers for four seasons in Green Bay, would be taking on his former team, having finally landed the chance to be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

Then Russell Wilson happened. Even if nobody outside the Seahawks’ organization believed that Carroll was running a truly open competition, that was exactly the case, and while Flynn was solid throughout training camp and the preseason, Wilson was spectacular, leading to Carroll picking the rookie as his starter ahead of Flynn, who was given $10 million in guaranteed money to sign with Seattle.

So instead of preparing to go head to head with Rodgers this week, Flynn is pretending to be Rodgers in practice while helping run the scout-team offense.

Flynn obviously isn’t happy in the backup role, but he’s also not going to rock the boat this week or any other week.

“It’s not my decision to make,” Flynn said. “I’m proud of the way that I’ve played and picked everything up, and how I handled coming into a new situation. I can’t control anything, I’m just trying to make the team better and make myself better and stay confident.

“I’m always preparing like I’ve got to be ready to go. That’s how my mentality is – I’m ready to go whenever I need to go. That’s how I’m always going to look at it. I still have confidence and I think I could still get the job done if I need to.”

Flynn missed the third preseason game because of a sore elbow, had was limited in practice by the injury for a while after, but he wouldn’t use that as an excuse for losing the competition with Wilson.

“It’s just been more annoying than anything, but I don’t think that played a part in anything,” he said.

Disappointed or not, Flynn has handled being a backup – once again – as well as can be expected, according to his coaches.

“He’s responded well,” Carroll said. “I asked him just walking out if it feels different to him and he said he’s fine about it. He’s helping in every way that he can, and he’ll do his best Aaron Rodgers this week and help us in that regard. It isn’t exactly how he had dreamed it, and maybe even us.”