Seattle bolsters its thin ranks

Published 11:42 pm Wednesday, September 10, 2008

RENTON — There were a lot of new parts at the Seattle Seahawks’ practice facility on Wednesday.

Duct tape was not among them.

With the regular-season home opener just four days away, the Seahawks were still trying to piece together a roster.

“The situation is a little unique, but so what?” coach Mike Holmgren said during his weekly press conference. “No one really cares except the people in this building. These are the cards we have, so let’s play the game.”

When the team took the practice field Wednesday afternoon, three new players were in uniform and another two were practicing for the first time since being reinstated from one-game suspensions. Three new starters were on the offensive side of the football.

The team looked a lot different from the 2007 squad and even had a few changes from the unit that lost 34-10 to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

“I would say it’s a bit strange, but this is football. Things like that happen,” said fullback Leonard Weaver, one of just four current offensive starters left from the 2007 team.

The most notable new faces are at wide receiver, where veterans Billy McMullen and Samie Parker joined a receiving corps that includes just two other healthy bodies.

McMullen is the most likely to become an immediate contributor, if for no other reason than he knows the system. The 28-year-old played in West Coast offenses with Philadelphia and Minnesota and spent the most recent training camp under former Holmgren assistant Jim Zorn with the Washington Redskins.

“I knew they had a couple injuries,” the 6-foot-4 McMullen said of Seattle’s situation, “but I didn’t know until I got here that it was that bad.”

Parker is less familiar with the system but might get pushed into action because of the Seahawks’ dire situation at wide receiver. Seattle has just two other healthy receivers — Courtney Taylor and Logan Payne — and is so thin at the position that backup quarterback Seneca Wallace was practicing there.

Wallace saw more reps at receiver than he did at quarterback Wednesday.

“That’s the first time in a long time, probably since my junior-college days,” Wallace said when asked about practicing primarily at receiver. “For the first day, it went pretty well.”

Wallace could also see time as a punt returner, a role that Burleson previously filled.

Punter Jon Ryan also was practicing with the team for the first time. The 26-year-old Ryan spent the past two seasons with Green Bay but did not make the team this year.

Special-teams coach Bruce DeHaven said that Ryan’s experience was a big reason why the Seahawks signed him after giving up on third-year player Ryan Plackemeier.

“You’re not bringing a guy in that hasn’t kicked in the league,” DeHaven said.

The practice field also included a pair of familiar faces in defensive tackle Rocky Bernard and defensive back Jordan Babineaux, both of whom were back with their teammates after serving one-game suspensions.

One player who has been around but was adjusting to a new role was Floyd “Pork Chop” Womack. The eighth-year offensive lineman was working at right guard, where he is expected to line up for the rest of the season after starter Rob Sims was placed on injured reserve. Sims suffered a torn biceps muscle.

Womack, 29, has started 32 NFL games at four different positions along the offensive line.

“That’s my thing,” said Womack, who joins substitute tackle Ray Willis on a rebuilt line. “If I can’t start, at least I can help out another way. And that’s to help out wherever I can.”

The biggest changes, of course, came at receiver.

“The strange part of it is the number of guys we had go down,” said Taylor, who is expected to get his second start at flanker. “I’ve never been a part of a group that has suffered so many injuries, so many season-ending injuries — ever.”

Taylor said that he hopes to improve upon his Week 1 performance, which saw the second-year player catch just two passes while dropping another.

“I’m still disappointed in the way I played the last game,” Taylor said. “It just doesn’t sit right with me, as a person and as a competitor. My role hasn’t changed. My role is that I’m mad and (ticked) off, and I want to go out and get better in this game.”

Taylor and Payne are the likely starters for this week’s game, but that could change as the week goes on.

Former starter Deion Branch practiced Wednesday, but Holmgren said he’s unlikely to play in Sunday’s game while he continues to rehabilitate his surgically repaired right knee. Bobby Engram, who led the team with a franchise-record 94 receptions last season, is probably two weeks away from returning.

The Seahawks will try to hold down the fort until those veterans get back, but Holmgren prefers not to look at the situation that way.

“We have to play,” he said. “When those guys come back, it’ll help the situation. But until they come back, we have to do some things. We have to win some games.

“That’s how we’re looking at it, (and) that’s how I expect the team to look at it.”