Tom Cable: J’Marcus Webb still in play for Seahawks’ RT job

RENTON – Asked recently when he feels like he needs to determine the five starters along the Seahawks’ offensive line, Tom Cable responded with a question of his own: “What day’s the first game?”

The message from Cable was that the Seahawks will take all the time they have before making any final decisions. He went on to say that it would “really be premature to say this guy should do this or this guy should do that,” especially since Seattle hadn’t yet seen right tackle J’Marcus Webb play in the preseason.

Webb made his preseason debut last week after missing the first two games, and the Seahawks have apparently seen enough since he returned from a knee injury to consider him an option to start at right tackle, where Garry Gilliam has been playing ever since Webb went down on Aug. 10.

That injury led Seattle to insert Bradley Sowell at left tackle and move Gilliam over to the right side. Those two have been the Seahawks’ starters for the first three preseason games. But Seattle is now giving Webb a shot to reclaim the right-tackle job that was presumed to be his when the Seahawks signed him to a two-year, $5.75 million deal in the offseason.

“This three-man battle at tackle is still going on,” Cable told “Brock and Salk” on Monday. “I think the biggest challenge right now would be at right tackle with Garry and J’Marcus.”

Cable was asked how that will sort itself out.

“You’ll see Garry and J’Marcus play a little bit more on Thursday night,” he said, referring to the Seahawks’ preseason finale at Oakland. “To settle it, you can’t do it by picking a horse unless the horse races, so they’ve got to go play. They’ve got to compete.”

Webb entered last week’s game against Dallas in the second quarter and played four series with Seattle’s No. 1 offensive line – two at right tackle in place of Gilliam and then two at left tackle in place of Sowell.

“I thought he did a great job,” coach Pete Carroll said Sunday. “It was great to see him out there. He did a very solid job on the right side and flipped over and was very comfortable on the left side. It’s not necessarily obvious that the guy was going to be able to do that. He looked very good in practice during the week so we got him a few snaps there just to show us the flexibility that we may have moving forward, when you have to adjust and move things around. He’s battling for a spot to play now. He’s right there in there, so we’re very happy about that.”