Brandon Browner is back after serving a four game suspension for violating the league’s policy on performance enhancing substances. Pete Carroll confirmed that the Seahawks have added Browner back to their 53-man roster, and he’ll fill the spot that came open with cornerback Walter Thurmond being placed on injured reserve with a hamstring injury.
“He’s back in the building today, and it’s good to have him back,” Carroll said.
And while it seems likely that Browner will jump right back into his role as Seattle’s starting right cornerback, Carroll admitted there is some concern about rust. When players are serving suspensions, they can’t practice with the team, or even be at the team facilities, so no matter how much Browner has been working out on his own, he will have some catching up to do.
“I talked to him today,” Carroll said. “He’s here, he has worked out real hard and his weight’s in shape. He feels fast and all of that, he’s going to have fresh legs relative to guys who are 16 games into it. But we’ve got to see how he does, and fortunately we’ve got guys who can play. If he’s not quite right or if he doesn’t get off to a good start during the week, we’ve got other guys who can play for him. But we’re going to give him a heck of a chance to play. We’re thrilled to get him back, so we’ll see what happens.”
As for Thurmond, Carroll explained that the oft-injured corner suffered a setback in his hamstring last week. Thurmond was coming back from a broken leg that ended his 2011 season, and the long recovery from that injury—Thurmond re-injured the leg in the spring, requiring a second surgery—may well have contributed to his inability to stay healthy this year.
“We couldn’t get him over the hump on it,” Carroll said. “He kind of re-tweaked it last week, and that means it’s going to be a couple of weeks again. The whole return after leg break that he had, he never really got back to full balance with his whole body, and he was just vulnerable. so we just kind of have to ice him for a while here then when we get him back he’ll be able to have a good offseason and get ready to go. He played really well when he was in there, and we were able to see that he can help us and be a big part of the game plan and all. We look forward to him coming back when we get back to OTAs and all of that.”
Carroll also reiterated that the team came out of Sunday’s game without any new injuries, and also said that linebacker Leroy Hill, who missed Sunday’s game with a hamstring injury, should be back this week. Carroll did not say whether Hill or Malcolm Smith would start against Washington.
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