Notebook: Halfway through season, Seahawks have identity – they just need wins

Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll spoke with reporters Monday afternoon following Seattle’s 25-17 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 9.

The Seahawks are 4-4 at the halfway point of the season. While the team has improved in the run game – a focus from the offseason – there’s still a learning curve with young players.

O’Neil: In loss to Chargers, we learned why Seahawks have a ways to go

“We’ve figured out how we want to play, we know who we are, we have a real sense for that,” Carroll said. “Now we have to find a way to get the wins.

“Every game that we didn’t win has been a game where we had a chance to win the football game at the end or do something to really be in charge of it. So it’s close. I think growth, experience, and minimizing the errors that can happen… in the four or five games here prior to this one, we’ve made it very difficult on our opponent. We haven’t given them the football, and we’ve taken care of the ball, we’ve run it well and we’ve kicked it well, and done a lot of things that make you hard to beat. Yesterday that wasn’t the case, but that’s what we need to capture as we go forward.”

Unfortunately for Seattle, the difficulty of opponents will ramp up from here. The Seahawks will travel to Los Angeles to face the Rams before coming back home for a Thursday Night contest against the Green Bay Packers. Also remaining on the schedule is a road game against the Carolina Panthers and a home game against the AFC-leading Kansas City Chiefs.

Injury updates

After coming out mostly unscathed in the previous two games, the Seahawks had another rash of bad injury news. Chief among them is a hip injury to running back Chris Carson and a knee injury for safety Bradley McDougald.

Monday’s press conference didn’t bring much clarification on either injury, and it appears updates for both players will come later this week or on game day.

“I talked to Chris and it’s about like it was last week (with his hip injury),” Carroll said of Carson. “He’s sore, but he was sore last week and he made it through. We’ll have to wait and see, we’ll just go day to day with him. We’ll take care of him earlier in the week and see how he rounds out later in the week.”

Running back J.D. McKissic (foot) is eligible to return from the injured reserve this week, but Carroll said he isn’t quite ready for a full workload.

“We’re going to give him another week of really pushing it to see how he does, with the thought that maybe he can come back to practice the week after that,” Carroll said.

If there was good news coming out of the game, it was that the calf injury to right guard D.J. Fluker isn’t serious.

In other news

Former Seahawks wide receiver Brandon Marshall worked out for the Detroit Lions this week, according to ESPN’s Field Yates.

Seattle released Marshall on Oct. 30, citing a need for extra help on special teams. After the roster move, Carroll said the team would be interested in re-signing Marshall down the road if the opportunity presented itself. Should Marshall sign with the Lions, that opportunity would be off the table.

Carroll declined to comment when asked specifically whether the Seahawks would have interest in claiming ex-Seahawk Bruce Irvin off waivers. Irvin was officially released by the Oakland Raiders on Monday.

With Bruce Irvin released by Raiders, return to Seattle possible