SALT LAKE CITY — Cody Barton had a memorable day Sunday, for both the strange and the positive.
The former Utah and Brighton High linebacker — now with the Seattle Seahawks — made news before the Seahawks’ 33-27 loss to New Orleans in Seattle, when he inadvertently hit head coach Pete Carroll in the nose with a football pregame.
A video shared on social media showed that just after Barton threw the football, a jogging Carroll emerged from behind another Seahawks player — originally out of sight for Barton — and took the football to the face.
Carroll had three stripes of tape on his nose to tend to an open gash from the pregame errant pass.
Carroll acknowledge the odd pregame moment in his postgame press conference: “Well, this was an unusual game. So many things happened in this game that just hurt ourselves. Even the coach got hurt in this one.”
He later joked the moment is one they could have had fun embellishing, if it hadn’t been caught on tape.
“It would have been a really good story, that I head-butted (former Utah State linebacker) Bobby (Wagner) in pregame, getting fired up in the locker room,” Carroll said. “But I heard that they captured it on film. I just got smacked in the nose with the football the last play of warmups. I didn’t see it coming.”
Any awkwardness that may have emerged between the Seahawks coach and rookie linebacker were likely softened when Barton, who backs up the All-Pro Wagner, recovered a muffed punt by the Saints in the third quarter. It’s his first fumble recovery as a pro.
Barton slid to recover the fumble at the Saints’ 33-yard line when New Orleans’ Deonte Harris couldn’t corral the punt with six minutes to play in the third quarter.
Seattle couldn’t capitalize on the turnover, though, as a fourth-and-5 pass from Russell Wilson at the New Orleans 13 was off-target to Tyler Lockett in the end zone.
That failure to score was costly for Seattle, which trailed the Saints 27-7 at the time before losing by six after scoring on the final play of the game.
It was a good day on special teams for Barton, though, who also had a special teams tackle for the first stats of his NFL career.
In a game that featured nine Utah ties on active rosters, there were several intriguing local storylines:
— Saints coach Sean Peyton left the window open earlier in the week for his team to have options at quarterback between Teddy Bridgewater and former BYU quarterback Taysom Hill, with All-Pro QB Drew Brees out with a torn ligament in his right thumb.
The veteran Bridgewater — a one-time starter in Minnesota — earned the start and completed 19 of 27 passes for 177 yards and two touchdowns after a slow start.
Hill, meanwhile, played little on offense and added seven special teams snaps, mostly on punt coverage, as he now serves as the team’s backup quarterback.
He lined up twice at quarterback, once at wide receiver and once at tight end Sunday. By comparison, in the first two weeks of the season, Hill averaged 18 offensive snaps and 23 special teams snaps per game.
Hill’s biggest contribution offensively came in the fourth quarter when New Orleans was looking to add to a 27-14 lead.
After holding Seattle to a turnover on downs in its own territory, Hill took the first snap of the ensuing drive at quarterback at Seattle’s 28 and ran five yards off the right side. Two plays later, he lined up out wide and caught a pass from Bridgewater for a 5-yard gain on third-and-four. That helped New Orleans keep the drive alive and later score on a 1-yard Alvin Kamara run to go up 33-14.
— Wagner had another standout game. The All-Pro finished with a career-high 18 tackles, including four solo stops. He now has 33 tackles on the year, averaging 11 per game in his eighth NFL season.
“We’ve just got to learn from our mistakes; don’t let our mistakes hurt us in crucial moments and we’ll be fine,” Wagner told the Tacoma News Tribune, later adding, “We’ve been in this position before ... where we aren’t getting as many turnovers as we would like. Once we get one, they come in bunches. We’ve just got to figure out how to make those key plays, get the ball back to our offense and find a way.”
— Former BYU defensive end Ezekiel Ansah played his first game for the Seahawks after signing with the team as a free agent this offseason. He missed the first two weeks of the season as he continued to recover from shoulder surgery and did not have any statistics Sunday.
“It feels good to be out there, get my feet wet,” Ansah told the Tacoma News Tribune. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the field. It does feel good to be out there. It’s only going to get better from here.”
— Among other locals, former Utah free safety Marcus Williams had six tackles for New Orleans; former Judge Memorial High standout Kaden Elliss, now a linebacker for the Saints, was hurt on a punt late in the third quarter and former Utah safety Marquise Blair had a solo tackle.