A fully healthy secondary will have to wait for the Seahawks.
Cornerback Devon Witherspoon and safety Julian Love, who were listed as questionable by the team Saturday, were declared inactive for Monday’s game against Houston.
Witherspoon practiced fully Friday and Saturday, seeming to indicate he was making progress toward returning while Love was limited in practice all week.
The Seahawks decided to err on the side of caution with Love and Witherspoon with the Seahawks heading into their bye week.
The Seahawks will not play again until Nov. 2 at Washington.
“We expect those guys to play against Washington,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider said during his appearance on the team’s pregame radio show.
Love and Witherspoon last played against Arizona on Sept. 25. Love suffered a hamstring injury in the game while Witherspoon re-aggravated a knee injury suffered in the season opener against the 49ers.
Love has played three games this season and Witherspoon twice as the Seahawks have not had their full complement of players available in their secondary since the first series in the opener against the 49ers.
Schneider indicated each could have played against the Texans, but the Seahawks are taking a long-range approach knowing there are 10 games in 10 weeks once Seattle gets past its bye.
“It’s that point in the season where you have to look at late November, December, January as well,” Schneider said. “So we’re just doing the smart thing with those guys. They both really want to go. But working with (the team’s medical staff) and really listening to those guys, too, and how they feel about their bodies, we don’t want to (play them before they are ready).”
With Witherspoon again out, Riq Woolen — whose future with the team has been the subject of much speculation of late — got the start at one cornerback spot alongside Josh Jobe.
Coach Mike Macdonald on Saturday noted that Woolen had had a good week of practice and he was excited to see him play.
Macdonald was even more direct than that during an interview on the team’s pregame radio show, saying, “It’s the Riq Woolen that I remember.”
Woolen was saw his job reduced earlier this season when he played only in the nickel package when Witherspoon and Jobe were the starters in the base defense.
But Witherspoon has not played since.
Woolen also did not play in last Sunday’s win at Jacksonville because of a concussion but was cleared this week to return.
The team foreshadowed that Love and Witherspoon wouldn’t play when they elevated cornerback Shaquill Griffin and safety Jerrick Reed II off the practice squad.
Griffin and Reed have been elevated the maximum three times before they have to be signed to the 53-man to play.
The Seahawks’ other inactives did not contain any surprises.
Also inactive because of injury was rush end Derick Hall, who had already been declared out with an oblique injury, as well as rookie linebacker Jared Ivey, rookie tight end Nick Kallerup, rookie guard/tackle Mason Richman and rookie quarterback Jalen Milroe.
Milroe served as the emergency quarterback.
Milroe has played in three games this season, each time for one snap, when he was part of the active roster. As the emergency QB, he can only play if both Sam Darnold and Drew Lock are out.
Backup offensive lineman Josh Jones, who missed the last three games with an ankle injury, was also active.
From two safeties to zero
The Seahawks have never had more than one safety in a game and haven’t had once since Dre’Mont Jones recorded one on a sack of Detroit’s Jared Goff in a game Sept. 30, 2024.
They almost had two in the first half Monday night before each was ruled otherwise.
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The first came in the first quarter when Uchenna Nwosu sacked Houston quarterback C.J. Stroud for an 18-yard loss. Stroud’s knee appeared to go down in the end zone, but it was ruled that his forward progress was down at the 1.
One official even appeared to briefly put his hands up in a safety signal before the ball was spotted at the 1.
Macdonald wanted to challenge the play but could not since the ruling was forward progress, which is not challengeable.
The next came in the second quarter on a play when linebacker Ernest Jones IV sacked Stroud, who lost the ball as he tried to throw it.
The Seahawks’ Drake Thomas tried to pick it up and run with it but lost the ball with Houston’s Woody Marks recovering it and losing it, and teammate Braxton Berrios recovering it in the end zone.
Or that’s how it reads on the official play-by-play, anyway.
It was initially judged a safety with the ruling that the ball had never changed hands between the teams.
After a replay it was ruled that Seattle had gained official possession of the ball, which meant it was then a touchback when the ball went into the end zone and was recovered by the Texans.
Late start nothing new for Macdonald
While the 7 p.m. start time was the latest for a regular-season game in Seahawks history, Macdonald noted this week that it’s really nothing new.
The Seahawks often play preseason games that start at 7 p.m. And night games on the East Coast start later. Monday night games on the East Coast typically start at 9 p.m. local time.
Macdonald spent every season from 2014-23 with the Baltimore Ravens and was involved in a number of late starts, and he said this week that he would call on that experience in prepping the Seahawks for the Texans game.
Though not without a joke first.
Asked last week what the Seahawks would do all day Monday, Macdonald said, “Sit around, stare at each other.”
Then he added seriously: “We’ll treat it like a preseason game in terms of schedule. Something that was different for me coming out west, playing like prime-time games at like 4 or 5 (p.m.) was a little different. We’re really going to adhere to this schedule that we were used to on the East Coast. Just light meetings, light walk through in the morning at the hotel, and then we’ll meet up before the game and go play the game.”
Notes
Keeping with the season theme of celebrating the franchise’s 50th anniversary, former Seahawks safeties Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas raised the 12 Flag together before kickoff.
All of the flag raisers this year have been former players except for honoring high-school girls flag football teams for the preseason opener.
Bob Condotta: bcondotta@seattletimes.com. Bob Condotta is a sports reporter at The Seattle Times who primarily covers the Seahawks but also dabbles in other sports. He has worked at The Times since 2002, reporting on University of Washington Husky football and basketball for his first 10 years at the paper before switching to the Seahawks in 2013.