Seahawks’ Earl Thomas, DeShawn Shead have hamstring strains, Pete Carroll says

Seahawks free safety Earl Thomas hasn’t missed a game in his NFL career, making 106 consecutive regular-season starts plus 12 more in the playoffs since he was drafted by Seattle in 2010. That streak is now in serious jeopardy after Thomas injured his hamstring Sunday.

Coach Pete Carroll told “Brock and Salk” on Monday that Thomas and cornerback DeShawn Shead have first-degree hamstring strains. While that’s the least severe of the three degrees of strains, Carroll noted that the general timetable for recovery is 10-14 days. That puts the statuses of both players in doubt for this week’s game at Tampa Bay and possibly next week’s home game vs. Carolina.

“We’ll see what happens,” Carroll said. “Those are usually 10-14 days. We’ll see what happens.”

He added: “They both have slightly strained hammies and it just depends. They’re in different spots for each guy and it depends how they react to it and all that.”

Both players left Seattle’s win over Philadelphia, though Carroll said Shead was having issues with his hamstring over the weekend and then was unable to get loose on Sunday. He left in the first quarter and was replaced by Neiko Thorpe, who was acquired earlier this season when Seattle waived Tharold Simon. Thomas pulled up lame in the third quarter while covering the deep ball that cornerback Richard Sherman intercepted. Steven Terrell replaced him.

Thomas’ 106 consecutive regular-season starts are the most in franchise history for a defensive player.

“He’s smart. He’ll go if he can,” Carroll said when asked if Thomas would be lobbying to play this week given his streak. “We’ll find out. We really won’t know for all the way until the end of the week.”

Carroll was complimentary of the way Terrell and Thorpe played after stepping in on Sunday, saying he “watched them really intently to see how they were doing because both of them will be called on to play if we need them.”

Carroll didn’t have any update on running back C.J. Prosise other than to reiterate that he’s going to be out for a while after leaving Sunday’s game with an injury to his shoulder blade. Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reported shortly after Carroll’s appearance on “Brock and Salk” that the best-case scenario for Prosise is that he returns for the start of the playoffs.

Seattle also lost backup running back Troymaine Pope on Sunday to what Carroll called afterward a “bit of a high-ankle sprain.” He didn’t have any update on Pope’s prognosis on Monday.

Carroll said defensive end Michael Bennett is still hoping to get back in time for Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay, his former team. Bennett had arthroscopic knee surgery and has missed the last four games.

“He’s trying,” Carroll said. “He’s going for it this week. We’ll see what happens.”