Clark Judge of CBS Sports talked to Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll about the importance of creating competition at the quarterback position, using an example of how he did the same thing at USC.

Here’s what Carroll told Judge:

“Everything is a competition for us,” Carroll said. “My job is to put guys in position to show what they can do, find out what they bring uniquely to our team and then pull that into our style of play.

“At the quarterback position, one of the things I like about this is that that statement is so obviously out there: That we’re about competing; about putting our guys into a competitive environment to show what they can bring to our football team.

“So here you are at the quarterback spot where everybody is scared to death of controversy and who’s going to be the guy, but you will see it all unfold. I told [former USC quarterbacks] Carson Palmer, I told Matt Leinart, I told John David Booty and I told Mark Sanchez. Every time those guys went out they were competing for the job. Every single spring football and every fall football camp, and that was the only way we were going to look at it.

“I want Matt to feel our quarterback situation. I want him to feel the guys coming who are battling to come into the game. I want to create that as much as I can; to orchestrate that to bring out the best everybody has to offer.”

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What are your expectations for 2010? Let us know below.

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Don Banks of Sports Illustrated talked to Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll at the NFL owners meeting this week, and got Carroll’s take on a wide range of subjects. And if you had any lingering doubts on whether or not Carroll was in charge of the football side of things for Seattle, Banks clears that up here.

Banks:

I don’t yet know if Carroll will be the next ex-collegiate superstar coach to enter the league with great fanfare and leave a relative failure, but I got the sense he has a much better handle on how he wants to approach this NFL head coaching stuff now than he did during stints with the Jets (1994) and Pats (1997-99).

For starters, while he sings the praises of new Seahawks general manager John Schneider and says he had no interest in being his own general manager, he also believes strongly that Seattle set up a management structure that allows him the same “unusual autonomy” he enjoyed at USC.

“Really, it’s structured where I get to do whatever I want to do,” Carroll said. “And if it doesn’t work, it’s gonna be on me. I would never be in the NFL if it wasn’t for the Seattle situation. I wouldn’t have come back to the league in any other way, because I couldn’t foresee positioning myself [otherwise].”

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Our own John McGrath takes former Seahawks head coach Jim Mora to task for his recent comments made on the radio airwaves, and suggests maybe it’s time for Mora to find another place to call home. McGrath points to his own experience of losing his dream job as a columnist in his hometown of Chicago before finally settling down in Tacoma, a place he now refers to as home.

McGrath:

Maybe it was the whirlwind pace – a newborn in the house, a national football championship on the horizon – but I never looked back. And while I still enjoy my occasional visits to Chicago, I’m always comforted as the plane makes its descent toward Sea-Tac Airport.

My dream job crashed, but my dreams didn’t. This is home. This is the town where I settled down.

Which brings me back to Mora. He needs to find his own kind of whirlwind pace, because the longer he stews about the awkward way Seahawks management handled his departure – he met the press for a postseason wrap as CEO Tod Leiweke was in Los Angeles, interviewing Pete Carroll – the more he sounds like an embittered mope.

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The Seahawks are hosting Houston Texans unrestricted free agent Chester Pitts on a visit today and tomorrow, according to Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee. Pitts also has visited San Francisco and is in negotiations with the 49ers.

Pitts played left guard for the Texans under Alex Gibbs, so he would be a good fit for Seattle’s zone blocking scheme and could be a possible replacement for Rob Sims.

However, after starting 16 games for seven straight seasons, Pitts had microfracture knee surgery in 2009, missing the final 14 games of the year. So there are …

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Looks like the overtime rule for the playoffs will be changing moving forward, as the NFL owners voted 28-4 to adopt the competition committee’s proposal to change overtime only for the postseason.

The four teams voting against the proposal were Baltimore, Cincinnati, Buffalo and Minnesota.

I don’t like the change to overtime, but I understand why they feel like the percentages fall to heavily toward the team that wins the coin toss. What do you think? Do you like the new proposal? Let us know in the comments section.

We’ve got a month left before April’s draft, so now is a good time to peruse the mock drafts and see where who they have Seattle taking at No. 6 and No. 14.

Of course, the best way to do this is to check out the Fox Sports’ Mock Draft Muncher, which compiles the top mock draft from around the country.

According to The Muncher, Seattle is likely to select QB Jimmy Clausen at No. 6 and RB C.J. Spiller at No. 14. At this point, I believe the Seahawks might pass on Clausen at No. 6 and take either Spiller or a defensive end like Derrick Morgan at No. 6, and then draft the other position at No. 14. I don’t think they take an offensive lineman in the first round.

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Former Seattle Seahawks head coach Jim Mora was his usual, honest self during an interview with ESPN 710 Seattle’s Kevin Calabro and Jim Moore this afternoon.

Mora did not hold back when asked how he felt about his dismissal at the end of the season. He said he hopes to get back into coaching soon and did not rule out the possibility of coaching in college. And along with continuing his work with the Jim Mora Count On Me Family Foundation, Mora said he will continue to pursue jobs in the media as a TV analyst. Mora said he’s currently working “pro bono” for the NFL Network.

He also understands that although he would like to continue to raise his family in the Seattle area, if he continues his coaching career most likely he will have to uproot his family.

“I love coaching,” Mora said. “But in order to coach, I’m probably going to have to move. And moving means taking my family away from the city I love.”

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