Decisions, decisions ...

SEATTLE (AP) - Coach Pete Carroll wanted to give Seattle quarterback Tarvaris Jackson an extra week of rest for his injured pectoral and Charlie Whitehurst one more chance to prove he could be a viable NFL starter.

Carroll's decision proved wrong, and it wasn't his only bad choice on Sunday.

And now he's dealing with a frustrated 2-5 team.

"I think there is a lot of stuff that we have to work on, and I don't mind telling you; there's things that we can fix and there's things that we need to work on," Carroll said. "I need to help them as much as I can, and not get them in difficult situations."

Jackson came off the bench to throw for a career-high 323 yards, but he couldn't make up for breakdowns in special teams and Carroll's clock mismanagement in Cincinnati's 34-12 win over the Seahawks.

Seattle dropped its second straight and has just one touchdown in its past two games despite Jackson throwing passes all over the field against the Bengals.

But the Seahawks were playing behind from the start when the decision was made to go with Whitehurst.

Jackson went through his most extensive week of practice since suffering the injury in Week 5 against the Giants, yet Carroll felt he needed one more week of rest.

"I was hoping for another week," Carroll said. "As you could see, he could throw the ball well enough to play, he could play, but he could have used another week. So in my mind I knew he could play. I was going to see if Charlie could pull it together and get something going for us."

Along with the offensive struggles, Seattle also gave up Brandon Tate's 56-yard punt return for a touchdown with 3:22 left that clinched the victory for the Bengals.

Reggie Nelson added a 75-yard interception return of Jackson for a touchdown with 36 seconds left for the final margin.

Whitehurst led the Seahawks offense to just 137 yards in a 6-3 loss to Cleveland last week and continued to struggle to move the Seahawks' offense early on Sunday.

Whitehurst led Seattle to only three first downs and just 61 yards of offense before Carroll made the switch to try and spark the offense.

Jackson went through pregame warmups and appeared ready to play from the start.

"Woke up this morning with the mindset to come here expecting to play," Jackson said. "I really didn't know how I was going to feel, but it felt good enough to play so I just left it up to the coaches, and they went to Charlie first to see how it goes and we'd just go from there."

Instead, he had to try and overcome a 10-3 deficit when he entered the game early in the second quarter.

Seattle (2-5) finally got a little bit clicking offensively with Jackson before halftime, driving inside the Bengals 5, but Zach Miller was stopped 2 yards short of a first down at the Cincinnati 3.

That's when Carroll's clock management issues resurfaced.

Carroll used his final timeout and decided to go for it on fourth down, running an inside handoff to Lynch with 14 seconds remaining. Lynch was tripped up short of the goal line and the ball never got spotted in time for Seattle to spike the ball and run another play.

"It was an opportunity that I had to put the ball in the end zone and I feel that I did not execute the play," Lynch said. "That could have been another play right there that would have put us in a different position."

Jackson screamed at referee Tony Corrente, his voice getting transmitted through the open microphone and Carroll slammed his headset on the turf as he marched on the field demanding an explanation.

Carroll clearly didn't take his own advice from a year ago, when in a win over San Diego a similar circumstance happened and the Seahawks were left watching the first-half clock expire without any points. After that mistake, Carroll said he was "too bold," and would learn from the time management miscue.

Instead, Carroll made the same mistake again Sunday allowing the clock to expire with nothing to show for their efforts.

"We learned about what happens when a coach gets hormonal and tries to jam it down their throat for a touchdown at the end of the half," he said. "That was a mistake."

Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton threw a pair of first-half touchdown passes, one to fellow rookie A.J. Green, Brandon Tate returned a punt 56 yards for a touchdown with 3:22 left to seal the game away.

Dalton tossed TDs of 14 yards to Jerome Simpson and a beautiful 43-yarder that dropped into the arms of Green in the second quarter to give the Bengals a 17-3 lead.

The Bengals are tied with the Ravens for second place in the AFC North, with both teams a half game behind Pittsburgh (6-2).

Cincinnati is 5-2 for the fourth time in the past 21 years and the previous three times it reached the postseason. They also won on the West Coast for the first time since winning at San Diego in 2003.

"We continue to find a way to win it and continue to find a way to keep it interesting. We have to grow on the positives and we've got to correct the negatives," said Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis, who became the all-time franchise leader in wins.

"That's a hard-fought game. It started out with more talking than playing. We got ahead at that point, and we were able to settle down and play a little bit more better in the second half."

Notes: Carroll said WR Mike Williams tweaked a hamstring and that's why he was not active. ... Seattle WRs Sidney Rice (102) and Ben Obomanu (107) both topped 100 yards receiving. ... Cincinnati's Adam Jones said his hamstring was just a tweak and that he would do "whatever I have to do to be healthy," for next week's game at Tennessee. ... Lewis passed Sam Wyche for most wins in Bengals history.