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Geno Smith says he could not hear a play-call at a key time

Among many weird things that happened when Seattle played the Rams is that Geno Smith left the game with an arm injury, left for most of the fourth quarter, then came back and got Seattle in position for a long field goal attempt. Seattle missed the 55-yard field goal, of course, but two plays prior to the attempt and with 41 seconds left, the Seahawks ran the ball instead of throwing the ball for either more yards or to stop the clock.

The issue appears to be that the headset in Smith's helmet went out on just that one play and Smith called a running play based on the alignment that the Rams had. Charbonnet only got 2 yards, however, and the clock continued to run. Smith was able to spike the ball with 8 seconds left. Had a pass been thrown and assuming Smith wasn't sacked, Seattle would have either picked up more yards than they did on the run or the pass would have been incomplete stopping the clock well before 8 seconds.

The question is whether we believe the headset went out. One would think that if Smith couldn't hear the play, he would have looked to the sidelines for the call. NFL teams always have backup plans. So either the run was called as designed by offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and it didn't work, or Smith should have been more active in getting the play.