So much for the Seahawks finally getting whole in the secondary.
Instead of this week, that may not happen for another month. Or more.
“Did want to give you an update on the injury front, really, the only thing that’s new: Julian Love had a bit of a setback with his hamstring (injury) last week,” coach Mike Macdonald said Wednesday. “So he won’t practice today.
“Game status right now is, I would say, in jeopardy.”
Love, Seattle’s Pro Bowl safety in 2023, has missed four of the last five games. He injured his hamstring. He missed the team’s win over New Orleans in week three. He came back to play the following Thursday at Arizona, and re-injured his hamstring late in Seattle’s win that night.
That was Sept. 25. Love hasn’t played since.
The Seahawks expected Love to return this week coming off the team’s bye week off. He was in cleats participating in the start of practice Monday. While Macdonald said “last week,” that could have meant before Wednesday, the first full preparation practice and day for this weekend when Seattle (5-2) plays at Washington (3-5) Sunday night.
Devon Witherspoon was going to practice Wednesday, Macdonald said. The Pro Bowl cornerback has played in only two of the Seahawks’ seven games, because of a bruised medial collateral ligament in his knee.
The team’s expectation had been Witherspoon’s and Love’s returns this week would have Seattle playing with all its starters in the defensive secondary for the first time since the fifth play of the season. That’s when rookie safety Nick Emmanwori got a high-ankle sprain Sept. 7 in the opener against San Francisco.
Instead, the Seahawks are thinking Love may have to go on the injured-reserve list. That would mean he’d miss a minimum of four weeks.
If that move happened this week, the earliest Love would be able to play would be Nov. 30 against Minnesota.
Macdonald said Love going on IR “is under consideration.”
Ty Okada’s extended chance
Ty Okada has started the four games Love has missed, playing next to fellow safety Coby Bryant. They have been the first four starts of the 25-year-old former Montana State Bobcat’s NFL career.
It appears Okada, a special-teams mainstay who has on and off Seattle’s practice squad in the 2023 and ‘24 seasons, will remain starting with Bryant for a while.