Former Longhorn Thomas breaks leg

But Seattle doubts his tweet about retiring is serious.

Five-time Pro Bowler Earl Thomas, who was also an All-American at Texas, had been so unsure of how to handle missing the first NFL game of his career a week ago that he decided to take his family on a trip to Portland to take in NBA games and watch the Seahawks incognito at a Buf- falo Wild Wings.

So it maybe made some sense that Thomas reacted to a broken leg suffered in the second quarter of Sunday’s 40-7 win over Carolina — an injury that could be season-ending — by sending out a tweet in which he said he was considering retiring.

Certainly, his teammates and coach Pete Carroll said later they thought the tweet spoke more about Thomas himself than his future.

“I’m not so sure about that right there,” Carroll said when asked about Thomas’ tweet, saying a lot was running through his mind, including retirement. “But I’m not surprised that he said something like that, though. Earl’s apt to say something that might surprise you, and he did.”

Thomas’ tweet seemed to indicate he thinks he’s done for the season.

“This game has been so good to me no regrets,” Thomas tweeted. “A lot is running through my mind including retirement thanks for all the prayers.”

He sent that tweet before the second quarter had ended. He had been hurt earlier in the quarter when he collided with teammate Kam Chancellor while each was attempting to defend a Cam Newton pass to tight end Greg Olsen.

On the play, which came with 10:40 to go in the sec- ond quarter, Newton tried to hit Olsen down the right seam. Thomas broke on the ball from the middle of the field and collided with Chancellor, who was covering Olsen.

Chancellor’s left leg smashed into Thomas’ lower left leg as the two crossed in front of Olsen.

“It’s football,” Chancellor said. “Accidents happen. You can’t really tell where peo- ple are. We’re both trying to make the play. It’s hard to see your brother go down like that.”

Chancellor said Thomas’ tweet of thinking of retiring was in part to the emotion of struggling with another injury, and this one the most serious of Thomas’ career — before last week, Thomas said he had missed only one other game in his life, that coming in high school at West Orange Stark in Orange, Texas.

“When you get injured, it becomes very emotional,” Chancellor said. “Sometimes you say things you might not mean; sometimes you say things you might mean. It’s one of those things you just have to let him sit back and breathe, let him sit back and go through his process. People are going to take it how they’re going to take it. At the end of the day, he’s going to make the decision he wants to make, but right now it’s an emotional battle at this moment.”

Quarterback Russell Wilson thought it was “just a moment” of emotion for Thomas.

“I think when you have a person that’s so compet- itive, it’s just a little disap- pointing, you have such high hopes for what the season was going to be and where he wanted to go this season and all those things. Ultimately, Earl Thomas is a winner. He wants to help us win in every way possible, and unfortunately he won’t be on the field, but he’s going to help us in a lot of other ways. He’ll help us win through a lot of other ways, through the communication, dedication that he brings.”

Cornerback Richard Sherman said similarly.

“I think all of us think about retirement just about every game,” he said, saying that for Thomas it was an “emotional time . ... I would think it’s a little bit of an exaggeration.”

Sherman was amo ng those on the field talking to Thomas as he was down on the ground.

Sherman said Thomas told him “that was a hell of a break by me (on the ball).” Earl being Earl, Sherman said. “He’s in good spirits,” Sherman said. “He’s a strongwilled dude. He’ll be fine.”

Thomas had returned to the lineup after sitting out last week with a hamstring injury, which broke a streak of 106 straight regular season starts that was the second-longest in team history (the record is 121 by offensive lineman Chris Gray).

Michael Bennett said it’ll be hard completely replace Thomas.

“You can’t make up for it,” Bennett said. “You just try to find somebody who can do half of what he does. It’s hard to replace a great player, a Hall-of-Fame-type of player. You can’t really replace those.”