SEATTLE -- With 5:22 left in Thursday night's game and the Seattle Seahawks leading the Los Angeles Rams 24-3, Seattle coach Pete Carroll decided to call a fake punt.

Punter Jon Ryan ran 26 yards before fumbling the ball, taking a vicious hit and suffering a concussion. Seattle recovered the fumble and ended up with a first down.

Given the game situation, it's fair to wonder why Carroll made the call when he did. On Friday, he defended the decision.

"We had a tremendous preparation for an opportunity to take what we knew could be like a turnover in the game," Carroll said. "If we could get the opportunity, we would go for it. It didn’t matter when it happened. We were looking for it the whole night. The opportunity that we took, it gave us a chance to hold on to the football and not give them even the chance to get the ball back. What more could I do to help my team?

"How it gets perceived and all, that’s what you guys get to talk about when you want to. And I think it’s a waste of energy, but I understand it. I don’t expect that you can see it from our perspective. I thought it was an excellent demonstration of planning and prep and execution. It worked perfectly, except for the end of it was terrible. But that allowed us to keep the football, and it didn’t have anything to do with something with the score or anything. Just trying to finish the game as well as we could, in command of it as we were."

The Seahawks' next game is at home versus the Arizona Cardinals on Dec. 24.

Carroll said the team will evaluate Ryan next week and then decide what to do about the punting duties.

"We’ll just wait it out with Jon, but if he can’t play, we’ll have to do something, and we’ll figure it out," Carroll said. "There’s a lot of guys who dropped notes in my suggestion box that they can punt. Guys like [Jermaine] Kearse and Russ [Russell Wilson], they all think they can punt if we need it. We’ll have some guys. We’ll have a punt, pass and kick contest this week if we need to."