Statuses of Jamal Adams, Chris Carson, Damien Lewis, and Seahawks concerns on all the hurt
Pete Carroll has had his staff researching the increased number of injuries on his Seahawks and across the NFL this month.
He’s been seeking any correlation between the players having no offseason practices then a condensed training camp with no preseason games with all the pain and lost time in the first month of this COVID-19 season like no other.
Now he’s got to worry about injuries to some of his most important players.
All-Pro safety Jamal Adams, who’s done just about everything—good and bad—for Seattle’s porous defense this month, left the Seahawks’ 38-31 survival win over Dallas Sunday in the fourth quarter and did not return. Carroll said the prized acquisition in July in a splashy trade with the New York Jets has a strained groin.
Lead running back Chris Carson sprained his knee on Seattle’s final drive to the winning touchdown.
Carson, who had 64 yards on 14 carries, crumpled to the turf and stayed there for minutes at the end of a 2-yard run with 3 minutes remaining. Cowboys defensive tackle Trysten Hill tackled Carson then rolled his leg over after the tackle, a move hated across all levels of football.
Carson eventually walked off slowly with a team doctor into the observation tent set up behind the Seahawks’ bench.
Carroll said Carson, like Adams, will be getting further evaluations before the Seahawks know his status for next weekend’s game at Miami and beyond.
The featured back who has rushed for 2,400 yards in the previous two seasons has yet to finish a complete regular season since junior college.
Rookie starting right guard Damien Lewis left after getting hurt on the first play of Seattle’s second offensive possession in the first quarter. He did not return. Jordan Simmons replaced him.
Carroll said Lewis has a sprained ankle, and that X-rays at the stadium during the game were negative.
Starting left guard Mike Iupati left during the second half with a knee injury. Jamarco Jones replaced him, though the 33-year-old veteran of 10 NFL seasons returned to finish the game.
Seattle had already put starting linebacker Bruce Irvin, nickel defensive back Marquise Blair and wide receiver Phillip Dorsett on injured reserve this past week. Irvin and Blair had torn knee ligaments and need season-ending, reconstructive surgery.
“This is a big burden for them right now,” Carroll said, not just of his injured players but every player in the league in this season with little ramp-up time during the pandemic.
“It’s a big burden to be playing these football games. We had a lot of guys get banged today. There’s a whole slew of guys that something happened, one way or another.”
The in-game injuries came after guys began dropping out in the morning, before they even took the field.
Starting cornerback Quinton Dunbar, questionable to play Sunday, “had his knee act up” in the hours before kickoff after the team thought he could start again against Dallas. Tre Flowers replaced Dunbar, whom Seattle traded for from Washington this spring to take Flowers’ job at right cornerback.
Special-teams mainstay Neiko Thorpe had a hip issue flare up this past week. He joined Dunbar as inactive Sunday.
Lano Hill, the team’s dime, sixth defensive back, woke up Sunday and told the team he had a bad back.
“Lano Hill, he has a back situation that just showed up,” Carroll said. “We weren’t sure what was going on with that, and he fell out, too.
“It was a real surprise.
“We were scrambling.”
It showed.
The Seahawks had been playing dime about 25% of the time as opposing offenses threw all over them for an NFL-worst 415.5 yards passing allowed per game entering Sunday. Without Hill, Seattle stayed mostly in nickel, with five defensive backs. That nickel back was Ugo Amadi. The nickel to end last season as a rookie was replacing Marquise Blair, who sustained a season-ending knee injury during Seattle’s 35-30 win over New England last week.
Amadi played well for the second consecutive game. He finished with seven tackles and knocked down two passes on third downs to end Dallas drives.
“Ugo continues to make things happen,” Carroll said.
When Adams got hurt, Neal had to enter the game. He was on the practice squad wearing street clothes on the sideline during Seahawks games for most of three seasons, into Saturday. Then he got the call to the active roster. He stood near the bench for three more hours Sunday, until Adams got hurt early in the final quarter.
Neal had the final, game-saving interception in the end zone of Dak Prescott on the game’s next-to-last play to seal this latest zany win for Seattle (3-0). But that after Prescott completed 37 for 57 passes for 472 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.
Seattle has allowed Atlanta’s Matt Ryan to throw for 450 yards, New England’s Cam Newton to rack up 397 yards through the air and 472 yards passing from Prescott in its three wins.
If not for Russell Wilson’s NFL record-breaking start to this season—14 touchdowns, one interception through three games—the Seahawks would be 0-3 and in a world of hurt.
Instead, they are 3-0—and in a world of hurt.
Carroll said Seahawks general manager John Schneider “is working day and night to try and stay ahead of” the flurry of injuries to key players.
That means Seattle continues to shop for possible outside reinforcements. Free agent defensive tackle Damon “Snacks” Harrison? Pass rusher Clay Matthews?
Any outside player will take at least five days to even get into the building to practice for the first time. That’s been the NFL’s protocol for COVID-19 testing for incoming free-agent signings, and all players reporting to each team for the first time this unprecedented season.
“It’s really obvious—it seems, this is subjective, totally—but it seems it’s really a challenge for these players to make it through in these early weeks of the season,” Carroll said, comparing this COVID 2020 season to previous NFL years.
The veteran coach shrugged.
“We just have to have to take it one particular player at a time, and give them the treatment that they need,” he said. “Try to figure it out, and help them—and of course, in anticipation of what could happen.”
This story was originally published September 27, 2020 at 7:51 PM.
