Let us rewind back to New Year's Day. While you were nursing a hangover, Matt Flynn was putting up a performance that seemed destined to put his grand grandchildren through law school.
Six touchdowns. 480 passing yards. A record-setting 45-41 victory for the Green Bay Packers.
Even against the leaky Detroit Lions defense, it was a masterful performance. After the game, it was a foregone conclusion Flynn was going to get a starting quarterback job once he hit free agency. The only real question was how many zeroes the winning bidder would include on his check.
Of course, things didn't play out as imagined when Flynn hit the open market in March. The Peyton Manning sweepstakes overwhelmed his -- and everyone else's -- free agency, and after a visit with a Dolphins team that's heart was never in it, Flynn signed a three-year, $19.5 million contract with the Seattle Seahawks.
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While not a massive contract (for a dash of perspective, Manning got five years and $96 million), Flynn surely thought he was a shoo-in to start for Pete Carroll when he signed the dotted line. But Carroll has taken a very diplomatic approach to the beginning of Seahawks OTAs. Tarvaris Jackson, Flynn and rookie Russell Wilson all split reps evenly over the first three sessions.
In an interview with NFL Network on Friday, Carroll didn't sound like a man ready to hand Flynn the keys.
"Hopefully we'll figure this thing out as we go," Carroll told NFL Network's Lindsay Rhodes. "There's no choice we have other than to give these guys reps and have them show us where they're coming from.
"We see a lot of stuff from T-Jack coming back. It's interesting to see Matt as he fits together with this thing. He's come along very quickly and then also Russell is exciting and we got to see where he fits in, too. He's just such a tremendous athlete. So we're excited about this."
Flynn is guaranteed $10 million, so it'd be a shock if this really turned into a three-way competition once training camp arrived. But Carroll is keeping his cards close to the vest, and you have to wonder if this is the situation Flynn thought he was signing up for.
