RENTON — Seahawks cornerback Walter Thurmond took a big step in his long road back, returning to practice for the first time since breaking his leg last season.
Whether or not Thurmond is ready to return to game action this week remains to be seen, but being back in action with his teammates Monday was still significant to the third-year corner who is no stranger to serious injuries. Thurmond came to Seattle in 2010 while still rehabbing a serious knee injury that ended his senior season at Oregon. Thurmond stepped into a starting role last season after Marcus Trufant went out with a back injury, but suffered a broken fibula in Seattle’s loss in Cleveland.
“It’s been a long time,” Thurmond said. “I’m just glad to be back.”
Thurmond hoped to be ready for the start of this season, but he broke the leg for a second time in March, requiring another surgery. That setback meant opening the season on the Physically Unable to Perform list, which he was eligible to come off of last week.
“It was the exact same rehab and getting in shape and everything, so I had to do it twice,” he said. “That wasn’t fun at all. Sometimes I joked, I wish I had the ACL again, because that was a straight through injury, I came back at the start of the season. But things happen for a reason, so it’s just good to be back at the end of the day.”
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said he doesn’t yet know if Thurmond will play Sunday in Detroit.
“It’s great to have him back,” Carroll said. “It’s a real positive for him. It’s been a long haul him being out. Hopefully he can hang, we’ll see what that means. We’ll just take it one week at a time and see where it goes, I don’t have any idea what we would do with that at this point for this weekend.”
Other injuries
Receiver Doug Baldwin, who left Thursday’s game with an ankle injury, did not practice Monday. Asked if Baldwin would be able to play this week, Carroll said, “I don’t know that yet. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Carroll also said it was too soon to know the status of guard John Moffitt, who has missed four straight games with a knee injury, but Moffitt was able to return to practice Monday.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.
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