A quick couple of notes for you this morning if you haven't yet read all the links from Coffee and Cigarettes. First off, as Mike Sando reports, Seahawks WR Golden Tate has a broken hand - an injury he sustained, I believe I read this somewhere, on the practice field when someone landed on it awkwardly. The Seahawks still expect him back by training camp time so it must be a minor break. Tate tweeted the other day, "So when u have a broken hand and can't practice what do u do? Master one handed catching will be my objective. Still #compete."
It's a bummer for Tate, who could certainly be using this time to separate himself from some of the other wide receivers he's competing against, but obviously the injury won't make him miss any games, which is the most important thing.
As you've probably already seen, the Seahawks will be hosting Brian Banks for a workout/tryout on June 7th. Banks was a blue-chip prep star linebacker before he was wrongly accused and convicted of rape. He spend several years in prison and just recently was exonerated when he and a private investigator were able to record his accuser admit that he did not do any of the things she said he had. It's a class move by Carroll to have him out to the VMAC, and Carroll recruited and had offered Banks a scholarship to USC before all the legal issues went down. Apparently Banks has been training hard since October to get to a point where he's ready to tryout, so it should be interesting to see how that goes.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll again raved about Rishaw Johnson at the Town Hall meeting from Tuesday night and subsequently Johnson was running with the No. 1 unit at Wednesday's practice. The units/depth charts mean next to nothing right now, other than giving me a talking point, but it's still interesting to see that Johnson, along with LT Russell Okung, LG Paul McQuistan, C Max Unger, and RT Breno Giacomini comprised the 'starting' five on the line at practice. The No. 2 unit was made up of LT Alex Barron, LG Allen Barbre, C John Moffitt, RG Deuce Lutui and RT Paul Fanaika. Tom Cable likes to mix things up and practice his linemen at several different spots so there's really not much to make of this other than they're installing some versatility among their personnel.
I saw from several media members that Kellen Winslow looked good at Wednesday's practice - Eric Williams described him as 'fast', and several passed on that he had a diving catch in which good-natured jawwing followed between Winslow and the defensive backs unit on the sideline. I love this kind of thing, even if these are just random offseason practices.
A few more tidbits, per Danny O'Neil, Eric Williams, Mike Sando, and Clare Farnsworth - WR Kris Durham was back in a blue jersey on Wednesday meaning he's a full go for practice. Williams noted that former Husky Jermaine Kearse looked good catching passes. There wasn't much from the four on the quarterbacks - Williams said that Tarvaris Jackson had "good poise in the pocket and arm strength in the two-minute drill in the team portion of practice, but still seemed to struggle through his progressions." Also, Matt Flynn was 'efficient', and Russell Wilson looked 'more comfortable.'