Kenneth Walker III Is Back, But Four Defensive Players Ruled Out For Seahawks’ Week 4 Game At Detroit
The Seahawks will face the Lions Monday without four key defensive players who have been ruled out due to injury.
The Seahawks offense will welcome back starting running back Kenneth Walker III for Monday night’s game against the Lions. Walker missed the previous two games with an oblique injury suffered in Seattle’s season-opening win, but was able to practice this week and does not have a designation on the final injury report, meaning he is ready to go.
The injury news is less encouraging for the Seahawks defense, with defensive linemen Leonard Williams (ribs) and Byron Murphy III (hamstring) and outside linebackers Boye Mafe (knee) and Uchenna Nwosu (knee), all listed as out on Saturday’s injury report.
Additionally, linebacker Jerome Baker, who missed last week’s game with a hamstring injury, is listed as questionable.
With four key defensive players out, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said the focus is less about who won’t be able to play Monday and more on who will step up and take advantage of the opportunity in front of them.
“We’ve got four guys that are down, that’s four more guys that are going to be up,” Macdonald said Saturday before the team left for Detroit. “I’m looking forward to seeing those guys play. When you talk about having depth on your football team, you want the feeling to be, ‘OK, I can’t wait to see whoever is going to get that opportunity now.’ That’s our view is that guys are going to have more opportunities than they’ve usually had, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do.”
For Nwosu, this will be a fourth straight game missed since injuring his knee in the preseason. The Seahawks did not put him on injured reserve hoping he could be back by now, but Macdonald said there was not setback, Nwosu just wasn’t all the way back, and Macdonald noted that Nwosu was able to take part in walkthrough work this week, and he was also a limited participant in Saturday’s practice.
Macdonald said none of the injuries keeping players out appear to be long-term concerns.
“A couple of guys we’ll re-evaluate later on next week, I would imagine,” he said. “Not sure on actual timelines, but none are long-term I don’t think, unless something changes.”
Mafe, who is tied for the team lead with 3.0 sacks, initially injured his knee in Seattle’s Week 2 win over the Patriots, was able to play last week against Miami, but something happened with that injury that will keep him out this week.
“I don’t want to go into specific plays and all of that, but it’s nothing major, something kind of reoccurred in the Miami game that kept him out of this one,” Macdonald said.
On Walker, who rushed for 103 yards in Week 1 before exiting late in the game with an oblique injury, Macdonald said, “He’s looked good. He’s ready to go.”
Macdonald added that having Walker back to pair with Zach Charbonnet gives the Seahawks, “the duo that you’ve had all offseason and how you’ve envisioned our offense operating, and then if one guy goes down, then guys like Kenny McIntosh step up and can take those roles. But we’re kind of back to business as usual that we’ve had before the last couple of weeks.”
The Seahawks got an extra day of work this week, starting with usual Wednesday and Thursday practices despite a Monday game, then broke up the practice week with a walkthrough-speed practice Friday before holding what would be their normal Friday practice on Saturday. Macdonald said that schedule was put together with an eye on Monday’s game first and foremost, but also looking ahead to two straight games on short rest, starting with next Sunday’s game against the Giants, followed by a Thursday night game against the 49ers.
“It’s just where we’re at in the year getting the installs in, getting our normal work week in, then trying to get a day of recovery, thinking forward for, one, what’s going to best put us in position to be ready for Monday night, and then we’ve got a couple of games on top of each other after this as well,” he said. “So it’s a combination of short and long-term view.”
Macdonald also said that the upcoming schedule was something of a factor when it came to decisions on players’ availability.
“It is a factor on certain guys, that’s definitely a discussion point,” he said. “It’s early in the season. If we’re playing in the Super Bowl, it’d be a different conversation, probably.”
In non-injury news, Macdonald said that rookie Christian Haynes, who has been competing with starting right guard Anthony Bradford, will also get some playing time this week.
“You’ll see both those guys,” he said. “How much? We’ll see how the game plays out.”
