Seahawks want more Beast Mode

RENTON — Despite missing two days of practice with a sore knee this week, Marshawn Lynch will play Sunday.

The Seattle Seahawks running back was back on the practice field Friday, and Pete Carroll said Lynch will be fine for Sunday’s game.

The question now is how much more involved he’ll be in the Seahawks’ offense? The safe answer is: a heck of a lot more than he was Monday night.

In the Seahawks’ ugly 14-9 win in St. Louis, Lynch, Seattle’s go-to guy since he came here in 2010, just had eight carries. It was clear watching Lynch on the sideline that he wasn’t happy with that, nor was Pete Carroll.

“He’s going to get more involved than he did last week, I’ll say that,” Carroll said. “More involved than last week. That was not right, we didn’t get that done.”

Carroll noted that it was never their intent to limit Lynch’s work load last week, but rather that with the offense getting so little done, gaining just seven first downs, there weren’t that many chances to engage Beast Mode.

“We have to play better so that he has the opportunities,” Carroll said. “There was no place to point it, like we didn’t call his play enough. We only had 40 plays, and that’s where you get messed up.”

In Seattle’s previous game, Lynch appeared to offer an, um, one-fingered salute toward Seattle’s sideline when his number wasn’t called at the goal line. Then in St. Louis, Lynch appeared unhappy with his lack of touches. Carroll said earlier this week that he has no issue with Lynch’s frustration.

“He and I sat on the plane the other night coming home, and we were both sitting in frustration over the exact same issue,” Carroll said. “We didn’t get the ball to him in ways we had hoped to because of the way the game turned out. There was not intention in it at all. Unfortunately we didn’t get him going, and that’s not how we play. So hopefully we’ll do better this time. Sometimes it happens, it was unfortunate for a lot of reasons. I share the frustration with him. I don’t mind one bit him being frustrated about that. I was too.”

Harvin still out

As expected, Carroll ruled Percy Harvin out for this week’s game, saying the receiver is still working his way back from soreness that crept up after he returned to practice last week.

“He’s not playing Sunday,” Carroll said. “We’ve been quiet with him. He was a little sore from last week, so we’re just making sure he’ll be ready to go and we won’t waste our opportunity with him on the practice field.”

With Harvin still on the Physically Unable to Perform list, but having returned to practice last week, the Seahawks can go two more games before they have to activate him on the 53-man roster (teams have 21 days from when the player returned to practice to activate them).

Asked if he regretted “starting the clock” on Harvin by bringing him back last week, Carroll said, “No. Not yet. If he was on our team and was banged up, we certainly wouldn’t mind keeping him as one of the inactives, so if that’s the way it winds a few weeks from now, that’s what it is, but we’re hoping to get him back. He was fine a week ago, ready to go, and the wear and tear of the comeback just got him a little bit, so we’re just slowing him down.”

Carroll added they did another MRI on Harvin’s hip “to make sure we were seeing everything right. There were no complications and all of that, so we’re just bringing him back.”

Injured tackles could practice next week with the team

Left tackle Russell Okung and right tackle Breno Giacomini are both still a little ways away from being ready for game action, but both should be back on the practice field in some capacity next week.

“We’re talking about (Okung) being back on the field Wednesday,” Carroll said. “He might work out at the stadium on Sunday, we’ll see about that, but for sure by Wednesday he’ll be out doing some things. We’re really encouraged — every day he’s worked he shown he can handle it with the rehab portion of it, so it’s a real positive.”

Okung, who is on the injured reserve/designated for return list, has to miss eight weeks from when he was placed on that list, so he cannot play until the Nov. 17 game against Minnesota at the earliest. Carroll said they won’t know if Okung can make it back by that game until they see him practice.

Giacomini, who had knee surgery earlier this season, appears to be on a similar timeline as Okung.

“Breno will be back about on the same day,” Carroll said. “It’s looking like on the same day both those guys will come back to the practice field and start working, then we’ll have to determine what that means, we won’t know until we get going.”

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.