Defensive starters Benson Mayowa, Quinton Dunbar questionable for Seahawks vs Cowboys
The Seahawks have had just one defensive lineman create any semblance of consistency in their pass rush so far this season. He’s the only defensive lineman with a sack.
And he may not play against Dak Prescott and the Cowboys.
Seattle lists end Benson Mayowa questionable for Sunday’s game against Dallas at CenturyLink Field. Mayowa practiced on a limited basis Friday. It was his first work on the field this week.
Coach Pete Carroll sounded optimistic the veteran edge rusher will play against the Cowboys.
“He looks like he’s got a chance,” Carroll said following the indoor practice out of Western Washington’s returning rain.
“He’s coming back to us, so it looks like he’s got a chance.”
Carroll has already said Alton Robinson will play in his first NFL game. The defensive end and rookie fifth-round draft choice has been inactive for the first two games.
Carroll said Robinson, who gained 10 pounds from the time Seattle drafted him in April to training camp in August, has shown “speed and power” in practices.
“He’s got some real stuff,” Carroll said Friday, adding the rookie knows the defensive playbook and is thus ready to play in any situation.
“We are going into it with confidence that he will do a great job.”
Starting cornerback Quinton Dunbar is also questionable. He has a knee injury. Tre Flowers would start if Dunbar doesn’t. Flowers was Seattle’s starter at right cornerback in 2018 and ‘19, before the team traded for Dunbar in March.
Mayowa missed practices Wednesday and Thursday with a groin injury he apparently got in the Seahawks’ win over New England last weekend.
That’s the price of having to play a 29-year-old defensive lineman on 90% of a game’s snaps, because of other injuries across the front.
Bruce Irvin went on injured reserve this week needing reconstructive knee surgery.
End Rasheem Green went on IR Friday. He will miss at least the next three weeks, per new NFL rules for shorter-term IR in this COVID-19 season. The team’s sack leader last season pinched a nerve in his neck early in Seattle’s opener at Atlanta.
“Rasheem, it’s just going to be a couple weeks, so this was the right way to handle this, to give him (time),” Carroll said. “We are expecting him to come back to us. He’s just got to get through the process and make sure he can pass his tests. It’s going to be a couple weeks, we think, so this is going to work out OK in terms of putting him down and he’ll be able to return.”
Rookie second-round draft choice Darryl Taylor remains on the non-football-injury list sidelined indefinitely. He has yet to practice in the NFL following surgery that put a Titanium rod in his lower leg to fix a stress fracture in late January.
Coach Pete Carroll said this week he doesn’t know when Taylor and Green may get on the field again.
The Seahawks are last in the league in yards allowed (485) and passing yards surrendered (415.5) per game through two weeks. Seattle has just three sacks in two games. Two of them are by safety Jamal Adams, as Seattle has had to blitz far more than Carroll has in the past. That’s been to create pressure on quarterbacks that otherwise is not there from the defensive front.
Coordinator Ken Norton Jr. said following practice everyone on the defense knows they must improve, particularly by not giving up so many big pass plays behind them. That’s a Carroll cardinal sin, and it’s been happening with alarming regularity to begin this season.
Even Adams, the All-Pro, has allowed receivers to get behind him for huge gains.
“Nobody is happy,” Norton said this week.
Special-teams mainstay Neiko Thorpe is questionable to play against the Cowboys because of a hip injury. Also questionable: reserve offensive tackle Cedric Ogbuehi (pectoral), who would be a candidate as an extra, run-blocking tight end in short-yardage situations.
This story was originally published September 25, 2020 at 1:12 PM.
