We are just days away, 12s, from another Seattle Seahawks football game. After months of lead-up to the 2023 season, we got a glimpse of how good (and heck, in Week 1...bad) Seattle can be in 2023. And so far, we mostly like what we see.
And Seattle has gotten to a 3-1 record without the help of many key players. Not because those players didn't want to help, of course, but because they simply couldn't. They were injured, see. But soon they will return.
Among those not mentioned in what follows are Tre Brown and Phil Haynes. Both players practiced and hopefully will be good to play against the Bengals. Brown's return could make a bigger impact than Haynes, though, and that's a good thing. No offense to Haynes, but Seattle needs all the high-quality secondary help it can get against Joe Burrow and his friends.
Seattle Seahawks left tackle Charles Cross seems ready to return
Of course, I am not a doctor and I didn't sleep in a hotel last night (thankfully!), but reading between head coach Pete Carroll's words of Cross looked "nifty" early in the week, I am going to assume Cross is going to be back in Week 6. That is if his toe injury can hold up the rest of the week. For most of us, a toe injury might not be a terrible thing, but for someone over 300 pounds and is a quality athlete trying to get push off to block beasts trying to chase down your quarterback, the toe might be a major concern.
So let's assume that Cross is back. What does Seattle's offensive line look like against the Bengals? We might question whether left guard Damien Lewis will return against Cincinnati as Lewis didn't practice on Wednesday after getting getting his ankle hurt in Week 4. A toe is bad enough, but an ankle? Yeah, that's worse.
So assuming Cross is in at LT, then maybe Jason Peters actually gets the start at left guard (Peters was signed a few weeks ago and is a future Hall of Fame tackle who can also play guard), Evan Brown will be at center, potentially rookie Anthony Bradford at right guard, and Jake Curhan at right tackle. That might not be the best Seattle could field in 2023 as far as the offensive line goes, but it's a decent group that could open holes for Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet against Cincinnati's bad rush defense.