Seahawks tackle James Carpenter takes reps at left guard

By Liz Mathews

Seahawks tackle James Carpenter took reps at left guard with the first team offense on Monday. Carpenter, the team’s first-round pick, also split time with fellow lineman Breno Giacomini at right tackle.

The work is nothing new to Carpenter, who spent his time in college on the left side of the line.

“I’m pretty comfortable because I played on the left side for like my whole life before coming over here,” Carpenter said Monday. “I’m more comfortable on the left, but I’m just going to do my job, what I have to do to help my team win.”

Starting left guard Robert Gallery remains sidelined and his status for Sunday’s regular season opener is uncertain. “Yeah, he’s had a couple good days here,” head coach Pete Carroll said after practice. “He’s got a sprained knee and we’re just going to have to see how it goes day to day. We’ll watch him carefully and he’s hopeful that he can make it back by the weekend. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Regarding Monday’s offensive line position shuffle, Carroll said the goal was to develop flexibility. “We’ll be in the game with seven or eight offensive lineman, so guys will have to play multiple spots.”

As for left tackle Russell Okung, Carroll is optimistic that he will be able to play this Sunday in San Francisco. “He looks good, he’s ready to go,” Carroll said. “You saw him staying out late, getting a little bit of extra running in. He practiced enough last week to let us know he would be ready this week.

“He worked really hard in pregame at game time the other night – he was dying to play, but we wouldn’t put him in. We wanted to wait a few more days. He practiced full-go today and he’s ready to go for this game.”

In other team news, safety Kam Chancellor was a full participant on Monday. Running back Marshawn Lynch and linebacker David Hawthorne will both return to practice on Wednesday. Wide receiver Sidney Rice “is a little bit slower than that” per Carroll, who said that Rice will be re-evaluated later in the week.

News and notes

The Seahawks players voted in team captains on Monday and selected cornerback Marcus Trufant on defense, quarterback Tarvaris Jackson on offense and fullback Michael Robinson and running back Leon Washington as special teams co-captains.

Running back Vai Taua and cornerback Ron Parker were added to the practice squad on Monday to reach the eight-man limit.

Carroll announced that wider receiver and former Husky Isaiah Stanback is no longer with the team. Stanback had been placed on the injured reserve on Saturday.

Defensive end Jimmy Wilkerson will undergo knee surgery. “If that wasn’t the case, then we would have hung on longer,” Carroll explained of Wilkerson’s placement on the injured reserve. “But it’s a knee that he’s hurt before and the damage is enough where there’s no way we can count on him getting back. So we need to take care of him.”

Carroll said that former Seahawks defensive tackle Colin Cole was healthy before the team released him on Saturday. “He still needs conditioning work and stuff like that to get going again, but it just seems like with the move we’re able to make here now and get our guys going and moving forward with (Brandon) Mebane taking over at nose tackle, it just made it obvious that that was a good move for us.”

The players have an off day on Tuesday and resume practice on Wednesday.

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