By Gregg Bell
The News Tribune
RENTON — It seems to be the case each season that the Seahawks are getting their bye at a very opportune time.
Especially for Michael Bennett and Luke Joeckel.
Bennett, Seattle’s Pro Bowl defensive end, has an injury to the plantar fascia ligament along the sole of his right foot to the heel.
“He is going to need these couple weeks here,” coach Pete Carroll said Monday, just as his players were scattering all over to enjoy their one week off of the regular season.
Bennett went to both knees following a pass rush late in the second quarter of Sunday’s win over the Los Angeles Rams that put the Seahawks in a tie for first place in the NFC West. A team doctor walked with Bennett to the locker room before the half ended, but he returned for the start of the second half.
“He was able to finish the game and did a fantastic job to help us down the stretch,” Carroll said.
Seattle (3-2) doesn’t practice again until Oct. 16, to begin preparing for the game at the New York Giants (0-5) on Oct. 22.
Joeckel is unlikely to play in New York. The starting left guard is scheduled to have arthroscopic knee surgery Thursday, to clean up lingering pain in the same knee he had reconstructed 12 months ago when he was with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Asked if Joeckel had any chance of playing against the Giants 10 days following knee surgery Carroll said, “I think that’s going to be hard to count on that. That’s probably too much to count on.”
So that means another change to the Seahawks’ iffy offensive line.
Joeckel signed a one-year, prove-it deal with the Seahawks for $7 million guaranteed. He has started and played all of the first five games this season, while taking midweek practices off to rest the knee.
When asked about the surgery Sunday while he walked with an ice pack on the knee to the Seahawks’ bus out of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — he played every offensive snap against the Rams — Joeckel said, “it will just be a clean-up.”
So now what at left guard?
Mark Glowinski started there last season. Glowinski was the starting right guard for the first two games of this season, until Oday Aboushi took his job.
Undrafted rookie Jordan Roos has been Joeckel’s backup since late August, and coaches have praised him.
Second-year man Rees Odhiambo was the backup left guard until left tackle George Fant had season-ending knee surgery in August. Odhiambo has since started as the left tackle.
Carroll also confirmed the team had free agent Branden Albert in for a tryout. Albert, who turns 33 next month, has played nine seasons in the NFL and made two Pro Bowls. He also hasn’t completed a full regular season since 2011.
“Yeah, we already did it. Yeah, it’s been done,” Carroll said of the tryout, with no indication anything will come of it.
Albert retired from the Jaguars this offseason soon after they acquired him in a trade with Miami. When he told the Jaguars he wanted to un-retire and play this season, Jacksonville released him in early August. He’s been a free agent since then. All 120 of his NFL games for the Chiefs and Dolphins have been at left tackle, so he would be an unknown at guard that would be also learning a new team and system in the middle of the season.
Glowinski or Roos would seem the more viable options for the Giants game while Joeckel recuperates.
Whomever it ends up being, it was be another change to the offensive line that got Russell Wilson sacked three times and hit 11 more times Sunday in Los Angeles.
Carroll said running back C.J. Prosise will return from his ankle issue to play at the Giants following the bye. The third-down back and pass catcher missed his second consecutive game in Los Angeles. It was the 14th time in 24 games Prosise since Seattle drafted him in the third round in 2016 that he has been out injured.
DeShawn Shead, the team’s starting cornerback last season, is getting close to returning from knee reconstruction in January.
Shead is on the physically-unable-to-perform list. The first date he can return to practice per NFL PUP-list rules is Oct. 16, the first day of the seventh week in the regular season. He has a three-week window starting then when he can either return to practice or else go on injured reserve.
“He’s just a couple of weeks now. He’s been looking at this Giants game and the week after that,” Carroll said. “I know he has a couple of weeks before he can get back out, but he’s in full push mode. He’s trying to get it done. As soon as they let him back out, he’s coming.”
With Bennett hurting, Quinton Jefferson out at least a month with a broken hand and no one knowing when or if Pro Bowl end Cliff Avril will return to playing with neck and spine issues, the Seahawks could use more help on the defensive line. Carroll said help may be coming in Dion Jordan.
Miami’s former first-round pick hasn’t practiced since Seattle signed the pass-rushing defensive end from Oregon in the offseason. He then had two knee surgeries. He’s on the non-football-injury list and, like Shead, is eligible to begin practicing next week.
“He is still a couple weeks away from us, I think, getting him back out there. But he is in full conditioning mode right now,” Carroll said. “He is in football-conditioning mode with the trainers and the strength and conditioning staff. He is pushing it. We will see how far he can go and how fast he can go. We will just keep our fingers crossed for him. It has been a long haul for him and we are really pulling for him.”
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