The Seattle Seahawks have an injury crisis at right tackle. Abe Lucas remains on PUP with an ongoing knee issue that caused him to miss much of last season, while backup George Fant’s knee injury has placed him on injured reserve through at least Week 7.
This tidbit from ESPN’s Brady Henderson is a few days old but is worth highlighting for anyone unaware.
Fant had been starting in place of Abe Lucas, who remains on the physically unable to perform list after offseason knee surgery. He’s eligible to return as early as Week 5, but Seattle has been preparing to be without Lucas until at least midseason.
For what it’s worth, Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald was as tight-lipped as ever as far as a meaningful update on Lucas when he spoke to media on Monday.
“I don’t want to put a timeline on Abe right now,” Macdonald said. “We have kind of an in-house timeline with him and we’re working through it. But, I’m not going to put a timeline on him right now.”
Stone Forsythe has played well in his two starts at right tackle, and unlike last season, when Seattle had him split time with Jason Peters, he has shouldered the entire workload. Peters, incidentally, could return to Seattle’s practice squad.
The main story here is that Lucas’ mandatory minimum four-week stint on the PUP list is almost certainly not going to be returning next week. If Lucas passes a physical and is designated to return to practice, he’ll have a 21-day window to be activated off the list. If he isn’t ready to play by then, he’ll revert to reserve/PUP for the rest of the season.
