Seahawks mostly intact as regular season winds down

By Danny O’Neil

RENTON – The home stretch of a season is once again quite literal for Seattle.

For the second consecutive year, the Seahawks will conclude their regular season by hosting two games against division opponents. This time, Seattle will need to win just once in the next two weeks, defeating either Arizona this Sunday or St. Louis next weekend to clinch not only the NFC West, but the top seed in the NFC playoffs.

“We start this thing with Arizona coming in,” coach Pete Carroll said. “It’s a big deal for us. It’s time for a championship ballgame again. So we’re going to try to get revved up for it and go.”

The Seahawks continue to be a remarkably healthy bunch as safety Earl Thomas (thigh) and cornerback Jeremy Lane (stinger) were the only two injury concerns mentioned after the game, and both players are expected to be fine.

Carroll mentioned last week cornerback Brandon Browner could be healthy enough to play this week, but the coach won’t know his status until later this week.

“We’ll find out on Wednesday,” Carroll said. “He’s got two days of running here to see how he does, and we’ll see what happens.”

Then there’s the obligatory question about the possibility of receiver Percy Harvin practicing.

“Again, we’ll find out on Wednesday,” Carroll said, “see how he’s doing.”

Linebacker K.J. Wright will be out at least another couple of weeks, but Carroll provided the most concrete timeline for Wright’s recovery after undergoing surgery to repair a broken bone in his foot last Wednesday. Carroll said it will be four or five weeks until Wright can begin running, but the expectation is the linebacker has a chance to be back in January if Seattle remains alive in the playoffs.

“They have a real good prognosis going,” Carroll said, “that he’s going to be able to get back there and be out and challenge to be able to play if we can keep playing games. But that’s a long ways down the road.”