Luke Joeckel injury: Seahawks will be without starting left guard for at least 4-5 weeks

The Seattle Seahawks will be forced to reshuffle the offensive line, starting with this Sunday’s road game against the New York Giants.

Head coach Pete Carroll confirmed at Tuesday’s press conference that left guard Luke Joeckel, who underwent knee surgery during Seattle’s bye week, is expected to be out for several weeks.

“We are going to be optimistic that he can make it back in four, five weeks and we’ll see what happens,” Carroll said. “Maybe that is possible, maybe that isn’t. We got to see how he heals and how he comes back around. He definitely needed to get some things cleaned up, and that was taken care of, and everything went beautifully, so he’s very optimistic as well. We need to see what happens here and really won’t be able to know probably for three weeks anyway to know where he is.’’

Seattle’s planned starting OL back in August was George Fant-Luke Joeckel-Justin Britt-Mark Glowinski-Germain Ifedi. Fant was lost for the season in the team’s second preseason game, while Glowinski soon found himself benched after a couple of disastrous showings. With Joeckel now potentially out until late November, Glowinski may find himself back in the lineup.

“Mark Glowinski started all last year [at left guard],” Carroll said, “so Mark is working there, and Ethan Pocic will also work there. They are going to share time this week and we are going to give those two guys a chance to battle it out and compete for it and see how it goes.’’

During preseason, Pocic took snaps at center, right guard, and right tackle during preseason, but the second-round rookie out of LSU didn’t play on the left side of the line (at least to my recollection). His “flexibility” is something that Carroll described as “very valuable,” but so far he’s yet to appear on the offensive line in the regular season. Pocic did return a kickoff for 13 yards against the Rams, so that just shows you he’s super duper versatile.

Seattle has struggled to find that ideal left guard since you-know-who left for the Minnesota Vikings in 2006, whether through injury problems or poor performance. Joeckel had been one of Seattle’s better performing linemen through the first five weeks, so his absence creates yet another void for the Seahawks to adequately fill.

The full press conference video can be seen here:

Update: Tom Cable later confirmed Carroll’s comments and added that both Pocic and Glowinski will play against the Giants.