More than meets the eye on how Seahawks list starters on injury report for Sunday at 49ers
On paper the Seahawks’ injury report for Sunday’s chance to clinch a playoff berth at San Francisco looks worse than it will be by kickoff.
The team listed Doug Baldwin, Bradley McDougald and Jarran Reed as questionable. But all will play, coach Pete Carroll said Friday.
Top sack man Frank Clark will play, too, after missing practice this week.
Rookie running back Rashaad Penny is out with a knee injury that needs treatment into next week, Carroll said.
Pro Bowl linebacker K.J. Wright will miss another game, his 11th missed start in 14 games this season, because of that knee on which he had surgery in August.
Special-teams player Maurice Alexander is out because of a concussion.
And right guard D.J. Fluker is doubtful. The team’s best run blocker will likely miss his second consecutive game because of a hamstring strain.
Jordan Simmons is ready to make his third NFL start on Sunday, all in the last month for the injured Fluker. In his previous two starts the league’s top rushing offense has romped for 273 yards on the ground last month at the Los Angeles Rams and 214 yards Monday against Minnesota. The Rams and Vikings are among the six, including Seattle, holding playoff seeds in the NFC with three games remaining in the regular season.
Baldwin missed practice Wednesday with the groin injury that he said is from a combination of factors and that kept him out of Monday night’s win over Minnesota. That was his third missing game in six years for Seattle, all this season. He missed the loss at Chicago in week two and win over Dallas in week three.
“Yeah, I’ll play,” the Pro Bowl wide receiver said following Friday’s indoor practice.
“I’m healthy to go. I’m going to go. They are planning for me to play.”
Clark and Reed, the team’s top pass rushers, missed practice Thursday. Clark hyperextended his elbow in the Vikings game, on the other arm from the elbow he hyperextended in the opener at Denver in early September. Reed has a strained oblique muscle “and a bunch of stuff,” Carroll said, likening what ails the defensive tackle “wear and tear” from a long season.
The coach used the same term for McDougald’s knee.
The strong safety who said Thursday he remains in touch with Earl Thomas has been one of the best and most consistent Seahawks all season. In his latest start he broke up a fourth-down pass in the end zone in the fourth quarter of a 6-0 game against Minnesota.
“He’s doing fine,” Carroll said.
Carroll said the Seahawks won’t know until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, prior to next Sunday’s home game against Kansas City, how Penny is progressing from a knee injury he got while rushing for 44 yards against the Vikings Monday night.
He won’t be on Saturday’s trip to the Bay Area.
“He came out of the game last week with a sore knee, and it didn’t respond quickly enough to get back this week,” Carroll said. “So we are going to leave him (back at team headquarters this weekend) so he can get treated and rehab.
“So he’s going to have some stuff over the weekend to see if the rehab is effective. He’s feeling pretty good. He just couldn’t get going this week, so the rest over the weekend and the stuff that they are doing will show us probably by Tuesday. Probably by practice Wednesday we will have a better feel.”
I asked Carroll if the tests Penny’s had on the knee so far cleared him from any structural damage.
“He had MRIs on it and all that,” the coach said, “and there’s nothing that needs to be done right now as far as surgery or anything like that.”
The first-round draft did not practice at all this week. He has 413 yards rushing, third on the team behind Chris Carson and Mike Davis, and leads running backs with an average of 5.1 yards per carry this season.
His absence Sunday means more carries for Davis behind Carson, and potentially more for third-down back J.D. McKissic.
The forecast for Sunday’s game on the grass field in Santa Clara: an 80-percent chance of rain and 60 degrees.
