Seahawks down to three healthy tight ends on the roster

By Liz Mathews

The Seahawks finished trimming their roster to 80 players on Tuesday, but the big news of the day was the announcement of tight end John Carlson’s season-ending shoulder surgery.

“There is something new on John Carlson’s status,” head coach Pete Carroll said Tuesday after practice. “John Carlson’s going to have to have surgery. We hadn’t told you that yet. It really came out yesterday for us. So just to let you know, we’re going to take care of him.”

Carroll confirmed that the injury was actually a labrum tear.

Carlson hurt his shoulder during practice on Aug. 13 and the hope was to gradually rehab him back to health. Having undergone extensive testing on Monday, the decision was made to go forward with the surgery, ending Carlson’s season.

The Seahawks kept four tight ends on the roster last year, and with the Carlson news, currently have just three healthy TEs on the team: Zach Miller, Anthony McCoy and Dominique Byrd. Cameron Morrah had been placed on the Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) list earlier in training camp and has not participated in any practices.

“Well, we were really counting on this,” said Carroll. “We were so excited about having Zach [Miller] and John play together, you know, and unfortunately that’s not going to happen now. It’s disappointing because John’s had a great start to camp. He was rocking and rolling and those two guys out there together looked really good.

“Fortunately, our tight ends have really played well. Anthony [McCoy] has done a very good job and Dominique Byrd has done extremely well in catching the football and getting open. We’re certainly going to miss John. We were really counting on him having a fantastic year for us. That’s a big loss for us.”

In other injury news, Carroll said that left tackle Russell Okung is “close” and hopefully will be available to start the regular season. “He feels really good,” said Carroll. “I think if it was the opener, I think he would try to go this week. We don’t have to do that. We can make sure that we put together some really good days back to back and take advantage of this long weekend and all of that. So that’s the plan at this point.”

Wider receiver Ben Obomanu was assisted off the field today as a result of hitting his head on the ground during a practice play. Carroll said the team was taking a precautionary look at him and there were no further updates by the conclusion of practice.

News and notes

The Seahawks waived safety Rickey Thenarse and defensive tackle Jay Alford Tuesday morning to reach the required 80-man roster limit.

Both offensive lineman Andre Gurode and fullback Mike Karney reportedly worked out with the Seahawks, although neither have been signed to a contract at this time. “We’ve had guys come in almost every day and we’ll continue to do that,” said Carroll.

Carroll expects the starters to see some action in the game Friday night against the Raiders.

The following players did not participate in practice on Tuesday:

CB Roy Lewis, SS Josh Pinkard, SS Kam Chancellor, DE Chris Clemons, DE Pierre Allen, DT Colin Cole, LB David Hawthorne, LB Aaron Curry, RB Marshawn Lynch, TE John Carlson, TE Cameron Morrah, WR Deon Butler, and WR Isaiah Stanback.