Seattle Seahawks Injury Update

Some interesting injury developments today as Curtis Crabtree, John Boyle and others are now reporting that per Pete Carroll, none of the Seahawks' four preseason PUP list players are going to be ready for the season opener in week one. That means that TE Cameron Morrah, WR Deon Butler, DB Roy Lewis, and DT Colin Cole are that much more likely to remain on the PUP once the season starts, meaning  they will be unavailable for the first six weeks of the season. 

Here is how I understand the Physically Unable to Play list rules, with a tip of the cap to my fellow SBN Bloggers for conferring on this (Christopher Gates of the Daily Norseman and Sander of BucsNation). If a player is placed on the PUP list to start the season, they can't play for the first six games. They are also not allowed to practice with the team during those first six weeks. 

After that, the PUP list player has three weeks to begin practicing with the team. If he is unable to start practicing with the team during those three weeks, he has to go on IR and thus miss the rest of the season.

From the time that the player starts practicing with the team, the team has three more weeks to add the player to the 53-man roster. So, in other words, if any of those four players were to start the season on the PUP list, they will have to miss at least six games, and can miss as many as 12 before being placed on the Injured Reserve. 

In summary, there are four relevant dates:

Start of season: If you're on PUP, you have to sit out six weeks.
Week Seven: now you're allowed to practice.
Week Ten: if you're not practicing by now, you're on IR.
Week Thirteen: if you're not on the 53-man roster by now, you're on IR.

This is fairly big news and means that the Seahawks will likely be without these four players for a large portion of this season. Colin Cole would be pretty good depth at the nose tackle considering he started all of the games he was healthy for in 2010. Cameron Morrah is a developing WR/TE tweener that flashed some good things last season so this hurts a bit. Furthermore, his injury is pretty mysterious and I'm not able to find much detail on it other than the word "toe" in parentheses. 

Roy Lewis (knee) and Deon Butler (badly mangled leg) are the most likely to be IR candidates of those four. I'd be surprised to see either of them suit up in 2011, both due to their injuries and the fact they've likely been passed up in the depth charts. Unfortunate time to get an injury, training camp is (that was me talking like Yoda).

Saturday Injury Report...

Marshawn Lynch will sit, as expected. It's mostly precautionary and he'll be ready for the start of the season. Further, Kam Chancellor (foot) and DE Pierre Allen (hamstring), Dexter Davis (hip) and John Carlson (shoulder) will not play either. 

Russell Okung has been participating in parts of practice, but it's very unlikely he'll play on Saturday. If I remember correctly, I believe the Hawks are still aiming for bringing him back in the season opener.

On a more happy note, we'll get our first chance to see WR Ben Obomanu this preseason and DE Chris Clemons will play on Saturday as well. Aaron Curry, Walter Thurmond, and Mike Gibson all returned to practice, making them more likely to see some action against the Broncos. 

So we got that going for us, which is nice.