Abe Lucas eligible to return from IR, but Pete Carroll says it won’t be this week

The offensive line showed some serious cracks yesterday. After being able to put some surprisingly successful performances together while missing their starting tackles, they struggled mightily against the Cincinnati Bengals. So mightily, in fact, that Pro Football Focus credits them with surrendering more quarterback hits yesterday (nine, in total) than they had surrendered thus far in the season (five). In addition to this, they allowed three sacks after allowing only six total through the first four games. And the worst part? All three of those sacks and five of the hits were on right tackle Jake Curhan, who is filling in for Abraham Lucas as he recovers from a knee “procedure.” Well, unfortunately for everybody involved, it looks like Lucas is still at least another week away and is not expected to take the field against the Arizona Cardinals.

So he is at least a week away... at least. As we all know, Pete Carroll tends to be optimistic about injuries right up until the point that they announce something is a season-ender. Nobody wants this to be the case for Abe Lucas, and at this point there is no reason to believe it is. However, as has been pointed out, the certainty and lack of hesitation in his response may indicate that he knows more about the situation than he is letting on. Or maybe he is just aware that they don’t want to rush him back after seeing how much the line struggled yesterday and they don’t want to risk further damage. Or they simply just need to see him clear a few more medical hurdles before he is ready to take the field again.

Hopefully, it is one of the latter options and we will be able to see the bookend tackles back on the field soon, as he could potentially return by their Week 8 home game against the Cleveland Browns, who just made life miserable for a McCaffrey-less Brock Purdy in their victory over the San Francico 49ers.