RENTON — Russell Okung’s stay in the hospital Sunday afternoon was a brief one, and now the Seahawks hope the same can be said for the left tackle’s absence from the playing field.
Okung, who sustained a bruised lung in Sunday’s win over San Francisco, is almost certainly out for this week’s game against Arizona, which could determine the NFC West championship and perhaps home field advantage in the playoffs. Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll wouldn’t definitively rule Okung out, saying in his always optimistic manner, “There’s always a chance.”
Realistically, however, Okung will miss this week’s game. The Seahawks will hope to have him back for the regular-season finale against St. Louis, or if not that, then for the postseason presuming they get there.
“It sounds like it’s a week or two unless we get a really good report,” Carroll said. “We’re going to kind of hope for the best and see how he does. He really wants to play if he can, and if he can’t, we’ll find out. But we’ll hold a good thought here.”
Even if Okung is unlikely to return this week, Carroll said his left tackle is feeling considerably better than he did Sunday afternoon when he briefly was checked out at a local hospital while his team finished off a 17-7 victory.
“He feels quite a bit better today, but we’ve got to be cautious and make sure we take care of him, so in a couple of days we’ll see how he’s feeling,” Carroll said.
“He’s got a bruised lung from the hit that he took on the interception (return). He was real uncomfortable initially, so they took all the precautions and took him out of here (to the hospital) to get him checked. And he recovered pretty well from that and got home pretty soon after that. Last night he was feeling pretty good, I talked to him fairly late last night and he was feeling a lot better than he did during the game. So we’ll just see what happens and see what the docs say during the next couple of days.”
Presuming Okung does indeed miss a game or two, the Seahawks will turn to second-year lineman Alvin Bailey, who played the second half at left tackle in Okung’s place. Bailey, who went undrafted out of Arkansas last year, started one game at left tackle this season for an injured Okung, and started three games at left guard while James Carpenter was out with an ankle injury.
Carroll admitted that Bailey struggled a bit in emergency duty Sunday, but expects a better result after a full week of practicing with the first-team offense.
“He made it through it,” Carroll said when asked about Bailey’s performance. “He had some good plays and some bad plays. He did some good things but struggled a little bit too. He wasn’t on his best game, but he made it through it and managed to get through the game. It’ll be a lot better, if he’s going to play this week, to get the whole week of preparation getting all the reps and all that. He’s done OK in the past for us at tackle, so we’re going to count on him to do that if he’s called on to play.”
Bailey will need to be on his game assuming he does start. When Seattle played Arizona last month, the Cardinals sacked Russell Wilson seven times. Arizona’s defense is known for mixing up different blitz looks, something that will present a difficult challenge for Bailey and the rest of Seattle’s line.
The only other injury Carroll reported from Sunday’s win was tight end Tony Moeaki, who “banged his shoulder a little bit. We’ve got to see how that responds. We don’t know that either at this point, but he had a sore shoulder last night.”
The Seahawks are hoping to get center Max Unger and tight end Cooper Helfet back from injuries. And while Carroll didn’t say either would for sure be back, he sounded more optimistic on Helfet, who has been out three games with an ankle injury, saying, “Coop made it back to practice last week and should be pretty good to go this week. We’ll see how it goes again on Wednesday. That’s not for sure yet.”
As for Unger, who has been out four games since injuring his ankle and knee against Kansas City, Carroll said, “It’s a day at a time now. The fact that he practiced (last week) means he can practice again Wednesday, and we’ll see how that goes. He’s real anxious to get back. We’re still hoping that he’ll make some more improvement though; he wasn’t at 100 percent ready or he’d have played in the game.”
Wrong throw, not wrong call
Carroll was asked again Monday about the final play of the first half, which not only cost Seattle a shot at a field goal, but also resulted in an interception that was nearly returned for a touchdown, the play during which Okung was injured. And as was the case after the game, Carroll said he didn’t regret the decision to run one more play with eight seconds left, just that the play didn’t work.
“It didn’t work out,” Carroll said. “We’ve been practicing those seconds and those opportunities, and we didn’t make the right throw right there. (Russell Wilson) threw the ball down the middle, and we likely wouldn’t have scored — they might have made the tackle. It was a shot to throw the ball at the end zone, and they played so far off that it just didn’t work out right for us. We had planned to still kick the field goal, but we wanted to take one more shot and see what happens, but it didn’t work out.”
Cornerback situation
With all of Seattle’s cornerbacks again healthy, Jeremy Lane was the odd man out in the rotation, a change for the player who was Seattle’s nickel corner for most of the season before being sidelined by a recent glute injury. Seattle instead moved Byron Maxwell, the usual starting right cornerback, into the nickel spot in passing situations, bringing Tharold Simon in to play on the outside. That isn’t necessarily how things will go moving forward, Carroll said, noting that he likes the flexibility they now have depending on matchups with opposing receivers.
“We’ll take a look at the week and see what’s going on,” Carroll said. “We have flexibility and these guys are a little different, so we’ll see how we do that. Too early to tell.”
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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