The Seahawks made official what seemed likely as soon as Russell Wilson had surgery on his injured right middle finger last week, placing the Pro-Bowl quarterback on injured reserve ahead of Sunday’s game at Pittsburgh.
Joining Wilson on injured reserve is running back Chris Carson, who has been dealing with a neck injury that kept him out of last week’s game and has kept him from practicing this week. The Seahawks filled those roster spots by activating two players from injured reserve, cornerback Tre Brown and center Ethan Pocic.
Placing Wilson on injured reserve makes it official that he will miss the first game of his 10-year NFL career, and also means he will miss at least three games before he’s eligible to come off IR. After this week’s game, the Seahawks host New Orleans in Week 7 and host Jacksonville in Week 8, then have a Week 9 bye, so the soonest Wilson or Carson can return to action is the Week 10 game at Green Bay.
Wilson had started 165 consecutive games to start his career, postseason included, and his streak of 149 regular-season starts was the longest active streak by a quarterback in the NFL and the sixth longest by a quarterback in NFL history.
With Carson sidelined, the Seahawks will again turn to Alex Collins to lead the way, with DeeJay Dallas and Travis Homer providing depth. Asked about Carson on Friday, Carroll said, “He made a really good jump over the weekend and felt way better, but coming out of that, starting to go back to work with it, there’s not enough progress made. So it’s better for us to get him back and make sure that we don’t rush it back. And so we’re going to just take this time—it is a delicate thing, he’s got something going on in his neck—so we got to make sure that we do it really well. So we’re going to take care of him, it just seems like the right decision. The jump that he made was in his relief and he felt way better and all of that, but not ready to play yet.”
Pocic, who was Seattle’s starting center last season, went on injured reserve in Week 1 with a knee injury, then returned to practice this week.
Brown, a rookie out of Oklahoma, will be making his NFL debut when he takes the field, having been out since late in training camp with a knee injury.
