Why Seahawks need Duane Brown’s biceps injury to improve right away

Seahawks left tackle Duane Brown has been bothered by a biceps injury for the majority of the season, something he first suffered in Week 3 against New Orleans. While the four-time Pro Bowl offensive lineman played against the Cardinals and Rams in Week 4 and Week 5, he’s been held out of Seattle’s two games since.

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The good news is that Brown was a limited participant in practice Wednesday, but 710 ESPN Seattle’s Danny O’Neil says there may still be a cause for concern with the 34 year old.

“That’s a guy to keep an eye on,” O’Neil said Thursday on Danny and Gallant. “Here’s what I think is happening, and this is purely me reading between the lines: I think they’re trying to see if his biceps injury can get better without surgery. So the hope is that he is going to progress today and he’s going to go from a limited participant yesterday to being a full participant today, but we’re going to have to wait and see.

“… Legitimately, I’m more worried about Duane Brown right now than I am about the defense.”

That’s not a ringing endorsement.

Later in the show, O’Neil did his best to parse Seahawks coach Pete Carroll’s words about Brown from a Wednesday press conference, when Carroll said Brown would “get some work” in that day’s practice.

“I would say the odds of him playing on Sunday in Atlanta, less than 50 percent. Less than a coin flip,” O’Neil said.

That’s actually what co-host Paul Gallant wanted to hear.

“I think that’s good,” Gallant said. “I don’t want him to play. I want them to rest him. I want them to get his bicep as healthy as possible.”

O’Neil said if Brown isn’t practicing more Thursday than he did Wednesday, it will be about as bad as news can get for the Seahawks.

“That will mean that whatever work he got yesterday aggravated, irritated or indicated that the biceps is not healing,” he said. “… A torn biceps you can play through until you can’t, and once it’s sufficiently torn, it doesn’t heal on its own, it doesn’t get better, and there’s only one recourse to get it better, which is surgery. Everybody hopes that Duane Brown is not at that point. If he didn’t practice today, it would be a sign that even the little bit of work he did yesterday it ended up injuring it more or he wasn’t getting better.”

Update: Brown was a limited participant in practice Thursday, which O’Neil noted was encouraging.

Really good news on #Seahawks injury report as Duane Brown stays practicing (limited) and Bradley McDougald gets back on the field. He was also limited.

— Danny O'Neil (@dannyoneil) October 24, 2019

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