Seahawks injuries: Dorsett questionable again, Penny and Taylor update

The Seahawks are just a few days from a Sunday Night Football showdown with the New England Patriots in Seattle and, like last week the team enters the contest with a relatively clean bill of health overall.

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Last week, offensive tackles Cedric Ogbuehi (pectoral) and Jamarco Jones (illness) as well as receiver Phillip Dorsett (foot) were inactive due to injury, and the rest of Seattle’s inactive list was made up of healthy scratches. It looks like it could be a similar situation this weekend.

In the Seahawks’ final injury report on Friday, Ogbuehi was listed as doubtful and Dorsett was listed as questionable. The only other Seahawk on the report was defensive end Rasheem Green, who, like Ogbuehi, was listed as doubtful. Green suffered a shoulder and neck injury in Seattle’s Week 1 win over the Falcons.

Head coach Pete Carroll spoke to reporters Friday about the health of his active roster, as well as the health of two rookies who are on the Non-Football Injury (NFI) list and a former first-round pick who is on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list. Here’s what Carroll said about the health of his team.

As it relates to Sunday

Dorsett, one of Seattle’s free-agent signings this offseason, may have a chance to not only make his Seahawks debut Sunday, but do it against the Patriots, who he played for from 2017 to 2019. Carroll didn’t give any indication on which way Dorsett, who was a limited practice participant Wednesday and Thursday and didn’t practice Friday, was trending.

“We have him questionable right now. We’ll have to wait and see,” he said.

Green, who is doubtful to play with a listed neck injury, has a stinger Carroll said.

With Green likely out, it would seem like Alton Robinson, the rookie defensive end who was a fifth-round pick, may make his NFL debut after being a healthy scratch last week. Additionally, fourth-round rookie running back DeeJay Dallas was a healthy scratch, and he could also make his debut. Like with Dorsett, Carroll didn’t give any suggestion as far as whether those two rookies would play.

“Those are all in consideration, yeah,” Carroll said. “We don’t have them nailed yet, we don’t need to, so you’ve got to with until gametime.”

Updates for Penny, Taylor and Parkinson

When the Seahawks finalized their initial 53-man roster, running back Rashaad Penny, a 2018 first-round pick, was placed on the PUP list while 2020 rookies Darrell Taylor and Colby Parkinson were placed on NFI. Those three are all working to get back and appear in their first game of the season.

“They’re getting a lot of work. It’s a really frustrating time for those guys,” Carroll said. “For Colby and Darrell, they just want to get out there and they’ve never had a chance to play NFL football and it’s really hard on them.”

Penny tore his ACL last season during Week 14. Since he’s on PUP, that means he is out for at least the first six weeks of the year and then the Seahawks have five weeks to have him begin practicing. Once Penny starts to practice, Seattle has three weeks to add him to the active roster. If he isn’t added to the roster, he is not eligible to play in 2020. Based on what Carroll said  Friday, it would appear Penny should be on track to return at some point.

“Rashaad is doing a really good job. He’s really trim and looking good,” he said. “I would think that he’s ahead of schedule for maybe what they could have predicted maybe the middle of the season (for a return) or something like that. I think he’s going to push for sooner than that. It’s great to have him and he’s had a great offseason under these circumstances and he looks really good right now, so hopefully we can expect him to be available maybe not in the next couple of weeks, but not too far off. ”

Parkinson, a big tight end out of Stanford who the Seahawks took with one of their two fourth-round picks, suffered a Jones fracture in his foot that required surgery. Carroll didn’t provide much of an update on him, but did speak at length about Taylor, a second-round defensive end out of Tennessee who many thought would be an impact player as a rookie. Taylor had offseason surgery for a fracture in his shin, and has yet to practice.

Parkinson and Taylor can’t practice for first six weeks of the season and can’t be activated until the Seahawks have played their first eight games, which would be after Week 9 as the Seahawks have a Week 6 bye.

“It’s been a tough return and I’m not sure when that time is going to come,” Carroll said of Taylor returning to action. “He’s got weeks before that. But he’s working really hard at it. He cares so much, he wants to get it done, so we’ll just have to stick with him. He was running on the ground pretty hard this week, so we’ll see how he handles all of that. I can’t tell you, though.”

Taylor was the last player the Seahawks had visit their facility before pre-draft visits and workouts were halted due to COVID-19. Carroll said at the time, the Seahawks believed they’d have Taylor ready by now if they selected him.

“We thought we had what we needed to know at the time. He was working out and we had seen some film of him and stuff in his workouts before draft time,” he said. ” … I think we felt like he had a chance to be back sooner than what this is now. We weren’t sure that he was going to (be placed on the NFI), we didn’t know that. We held out hope that maybe it wouldn’t, so it’s longer than we had anticipated. We’re just going to have to wait it and and get him when we get him.”

Patriots’ health

The Patriots’ Friday injury report had just one player officially ruled out: rookie linebacker Josh Uche (ankle), a second-round pick from Michigan.

New England does have a few players listed as questionable, however, most notably No. 1 receiver Julian Edelman (knee). Also questionable to play are 2019 first-round receiver N’Keal Harry (shoulder), starting linebacker Brando Copeland (knee), starting defensive lineman Adam Butler (shoulder), special teams ace and captain Matthew Slater (knee) and rookie tight end Dalton Keene (neck).

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