The Seattle Seahawks’ egos are likely still bruised from Sunday’s loss to the Carolina Panthers but the team has an even bigger foe coming to town on a short week – the San Francisco 49ers. Unfortunately for Seattle, a number of players are also battling injuries, some of which could keep them out of Thursday’s action as well.
The defensive line suffered a big loss first when defensive end Shelby Harris was declared inactive for the contest due to illness. Next, nose tackle Al Woods hurt his heel in the second quarter and was unable to return.
“You saw that Shelby just came in sick as a dog this morning,” coach Pete Carroll said after the loss. “He just couldn’t answer. He got IV’d, and they did everything they could for him. They couldn’t turn him around. Shelby is a big part of our play up front, and Al going out in the second quarter, those are two heavy dudes up front that we’re relying on. We had moved Al to get some extra play out of him at the end spot. Overall in general I think they had 60 yards at halftime or something like that.
“Things were somewhat in control, but Al couldn’t come back for the second half, and not having Shel, that made a difference.”
As for the offensive side of the ball, Seattle’s run game really struggled with running backs Kenneth Walker III and DeeJay Dallas both inactive with ankle injuries.
“As it turned out, neither one of them could make it, they couldn’t,” Carroll said. “DeeJay, high ankle sprain is hard to turn it around. He was really hopeful and optimistic and all of that and trying to bounce around during the week, but when it got down to it, often high ankles feel okay until you really have to call on it to push and it’s not there. That’s kind of what happened. Ken is dealing with an old injury that jumped back. He has been through it before in years past, and we just have to get him through it and see if he can play Thursday night. I don’t know.”
“I’ll take it one week at a time, one day at a time.”
Unfortunately for the Seahawks, they don’t have a whole lotta time . . . Seattle and San Francisco are set to kickoff Thursday night at Lumen Field.