New injury has Ziggy Ansah not practicing, Seahawks’ defensive line thins again
Ziggy Ansah is hurt again, just 18 plays into his delayed Seahawks career.
The 2015 Pro Bowl defensive end and prized offseason acquisition debuted for Seattle last weekend after 10 months sidelined from shoulder surgery and a summer groin injury. Now Ansah has a back issue.
The 30-year-old pass rusher did not practice Thursday, three days before the Seahawks play their first NFC West game this season at Arizona.
Neither did fellow defensive end Quinton Jefferson. The team’s most accomplished pass rusher through three games has also missed both practices this week. Jefferson has a hip injury he apparently got while putting Seattle’s only two hits on quarterback Teddy Bridgewater in the loss to the New Orleans Saints last weekend.
Poona Ford remains limited by a calf injury he’s had for weeks. Fellow starting defensive tackle Jarran Reed will be serving the fourth game of his six-game suspension this weekend.
Plus, the Seahawks waived rookie tackle Bryan Mone, four days after he played 22 snaps on the interior against the Saints.
That was to make room on the 53-man roster for Adrian Colbert. The starting free safety for the San Francisco 49ers in 2017 and ‘18 got promoted after his week on Seattle’s practice squad.
So the Seahawks were missing for all or some of practice Thursday five defensive linemen who played a combined 103 snaps in their most recent game.
That’s testing the depth of a unit that is tied for 21st in the NFL with six sacks through three games and about to face rookie top-overall draft choice Kyler Murray and the Cardinals’ wide-open, Air Raid passing offense.
The health issues on defense makes it likely L.J. Collier is active for his second NFL game Sunday at Arizona. The rookie defensive end and first-round draft choice was a healthy scratch for the Saints game. Coach Pete Carroll explained that was because Ansah was playing for the first time, and that Collier remains behind in readiness because of the month he missed from late July to late last month with a badly sprained foot and ankle.
On offense, key left tackle Duane Brown missed practice for a second consecutive game with a biceps injury Carroll has called “a little bit of a strain.”
Carroll said Monday: ““He’s got a sore bicep. There’s a little bit of a strain there. We just have to wait and see. We’ll hold him out a little bit. He says, and we’re thinking that he’ll play. We’ll see by the end of the week.”
Wednesday, the coach said of his best offensive lineman: “We’re going to rest him for a day and see how it goes. He’s a little sore but it’s not serious injury at this point. It’s not the kind of damage or anything that we have to be concerned about.
“We just have to get him ready for the game. We’ll see how he does.”
Running back Rashaad Penny went from not practicing Wednesday (when Carroll said he would) to limited Thursday. His hamstring injury kept him inactive for last weekend’s game, when lead rusher Chris Carson lost a fumble for the fourth time in three games.
“We need to see if he can tolerate it and what that means,” Carroll said Wednesday of Penny.
Mone, the huge, impressive undrafted rookie from Michigan, got waived after the Seahawks initially planned on waiving rookie wide receiver and fourth-round draft choice Gary Jennings. They held Jennings out of practice Wednesday and told the league they were going to waive him when the waiver wire for Thursday took effect at 1 p.m. Seattle time, while Colbert practiced so they stayed in compliance with 53 and not 54 men on the active roster.
They never put Jennings on waivers, though, and by 1 p.m.. Thursday decided to waive Mone instead.
