Getty Images

The Seahawks signed linebacker Mychal Kendricks knowing that he would be facing punishment for his guilty plea to federal insider trading charges. But with Kendricks suspended indefinitely pending a more definite punishment at some point down the road, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is justifiably confused.

“How do you define indefinitely?” Carroll said to reporters on Wednesday. “I don’t know. We pressed that. What does that mean? It means indefinitely. We don’t have a sense for what’s going to happen right now and they couldn’t give us any, so we know nothing moving forward.

“A month ago, or when we signed him up, we thought that there would be a time when there would be somewhat of a length of the suspension that wasn’t indefinite. I don’t know what that means. We thought it was going to be two, three weeks or something like that. I don’t know what’s happening now with that.”

It appears that the NFL would like to use its prerogative to suspend Kendricks indefinitely to justify delaying a final decision until Kendricks is sentenced in January. But that would result in Kendricks missing at least 12 games, twice the baseline suspension for crimes of violence, like domestic assault.