The Seattle Seahawks returned to the practice field Monday following their bye week and it was all smiles and optimism for head coach Pete Carroll as Pro-Bowl linebacker K.J. Wright was among of group of players who returned to the practice field after missing games due to injuries. Joining Wright on the practice field was tight end Ed Dickson, rookie defensive end Rasheem Green and tight end, Nick Vannett
Wright missed the teams first six games due to arthroscopic knee surgery, while offseason addition Dickson returned after spending the first six weeks on the reserve/non-football injury list. Green returned to practice after missing three games due to an ankle injury while Vannett returned after missing last weeks game in London due to a back injury.
When asked if there is a concern for players coming off the bye week, Carroll was quick to point out that while the players did not practice, they were given assignments to stay in shape.
“Always, yeah, yeah. Every week from Sunday to Monday it’s like that, so certainly when you take a week off, there’s more concern. Our guys had a schedule to guide them through the week so that they would stay active. We didn’t want them to just go inactive and we expected them to come back so that we could have a practice like we did today. They were very sharp today, focused and ran hard, ran quick through all the things that we did quickly.
We’ll be off tomorrow, we’ll go back Wednesday, we’ll kick it into high-gear and away we go. They had a responsibility to stay fit through this week and not just fall back, so we’ll see how that works out. That usually worked out quite well for us, so we’re going to count on that again.”
(On how K.J. Wright and Ed Dickson looked in their first practice back from injury)
“They did fine. I need to see the film to see it all. We limited them, they didn’t take all of the work. They probably had a dozen competitive plays as well as all of the rest of the stuff in practice, but enough to get them going and get them feeling a part of it. Really, this is just kind of the break the ice day for them. They’ve been working really hard so that this isn’t a big jump for them, that’s part their rehab. Particularly for Ed, who’s had a long time to work at this – he’s been running really hard so that he should not feel like it’s a big step for him to get back on the practice field. He should be able to play extensively on the weekend if he makes it through the week.”
(On if Nick Vannett practiced) “Yeah, Nick felt good today at practice, did everything.”
(On how the defense can get back to normal with K.J. Wright back in the lineup)
“He’s been such a fixture for us. He adds so much, it’s not a transition. Although, what has happened is Barkevious (Mingo) has had a lot of extensive work and he is really well versed to do a lot of things for us now – much more so than I would have thought would’ve happened during the course of the season, he was forced in there a bit. He really showed us some stuff that we were surprised to see. He hasn’t played behind the line of scrimmage that much in his career, all the way back to college even. He looked very comfortable and he’s learned a lot over the years watching, paying attention and through practice reps and stuff like that, he did a nice job for us. That just gives us some flexibility that we didn’t know we would have, so that’s a positive.”
