The Seattle Seahawks defense entered Sunday’s 38-35 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers significantly banged up, and now things might get worse in the short term.
Head coach Mike Macdonald provided some updates to Seattle Sports radio hosts Brock Huard and Mike Salk, and while his answers weren’t overly detailed in terms of who could return and who could be out a little while longer, the biggest story from Sunday is the potential multi-week absence of outside linebacker Derick Hall.
Hall suffered his injury on the opening drive of the game, pulling up and immediately calling for medical attention after he pursued Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield. He was ruled out for the game shortly thereafter with an oblique injury. Seattle has a Week 8 bye, so best case scenario could be availability immediately after the bye. A worst case scenario is any possibility of landing on injured reserve, of which the bye week would not count toward his return.
Woolen was concussed by running back Sean Tucker in the third quarter, with Riq trying to tackle Tucker low and getting met with a knee to the head.
Woolen was replaced by second-year corner Nehemiah Pritchett, whose struggles in pass coverage were so severe that it was functionally no different than playing with 10 on the field.
Witherspoon and Love are pillars of Seattle’s secondary and it appears they both were worse for the wear after returning to the field against the Arizona Cardinals. The extended break between games didn’t help, and now it’s a wait and see regarding whether or not those two will be around any time soon. Witherspoon’s imaging results will give us a better feel as to when he can play again.
On the plus side, Nick Emmanwori was fine after seemingly re-aggravating his ankle injury late in the fourth quarter. Seattle has had a hard time maintaining a healthy defense, but this is as bad as it’s gotten. Hopefully there’s some good news regarding Lawrence, Witherspoon, and Love at the very least ahead of Wednesday’s practice for Week 6 against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
