A day after Michael Bennett was taken off the field strapped to a backboard and taken to the hospital, Pete Carroll delivered very encouraging news on the defensive end. Not only is Bennett’s injury much less serious than it appeared at the time, he’ll be back on the field this week and likely able to play Sunday in Indianapolis.
“Michael is going to be OK,” Carroll said. “He’s going to practice this week. He went from where he was to feeling pretty good today, so we’re really excited about that for him. He was really scared. They had him in all the alerts, he didn’t know what was going on, but I just checked on him, he’s going to go this week, and we’ll see how much he can work with the thought that he can play this week.”
Right tackle Breno Giacomini will not be playing this week after undergoing knee surgery Monday, but Carroll said doctors were positive about what they saw.
“He had surgery this morning,” Carroll said. “The surgery went really well and the doctors were really pleased that there weren’t a lot of problems with his knee structurally, and that he can get back quickly from this. So what that means, I don’t know, because he has to do the recovery, but they think he’ll get back in pretty short time here… They were able to clean all that up, so we’re very hopeful he’ll have a good return.”
And on Center Max Unger, who missed the game with a triceps injury, Carroll said, “Max is going to get some work this week. We’re going to take good care of him and we’ll see how it goes. I’m sure we’ll be very protective of him early in the week and hope by the end of the week that he’ll be ready to go.”
With Giacomini out, presumably at least for a couple of weeks, that means rookie Michael Bowie will remain the starter for the time being. Asked how Bowie fared going against All Pro DE J.J. Watt, Carroll said, “He survived the game, and I don’t know that we could ask for anything more than that. He got through it, and he did improve during the game, that’s what’s most encouraging. We gave him quite a bit of help, as much as we could, and it wouldn’t matter who was playing right tackle, we would have give a lot of help to take care of J.J. Even though he only one sack, he still was a huge factor and he was a big problem and had us moving most of the day. But Mike’s going to be a good football player, we don’t have any question about that. He’s growing quickly, he was comfortable with it, it wasn’t too big for him, so I’m hoping that we’ll see real steady improvement here in the next couple of weeks until Breno has a chance to come back.”
Later, Carroll was asked about Paul McQuistan, who is filling in at left tackle, and said, “He’s surviving. I think he’s surviving it. It’s not his natural spot. With smarts and utilizing the scheme, he’s getting through it, and that’s all we can hope he can continue to do for us. It’s a big challenge out there.”
So to recap, the Seahawks’ current right tackle “Survived the game,” and the left tackle is “surviving it.” That’s hardly ideal, but it’s what the Seahawks are working with right now.
Asked if there were any other injuries, Carroll said, “Jeremy Lane has a little hamstring issue, we’ve got to figure out what that’s all about.”
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