Reports of Seahawks demise due to injuries is greatly exaggerated

The world is not ending. The Seattle Seahawks are on a three-game winning streak, and the team leads the NFC West by one game. The second-place team, the Arizona Cardinals, happens to be Seattle's Week 14 opponent, so with a win, Seattle could put even more distance between them and the other divisional foes.

Seattle needs to maintain its trend of being healthy, though. The team began the season with rotating right tackles which crippled an already bad offensive line. The Seahawks also missed DK Metcalf for a couple of games as well. This is the first season Metcalf has missed multiple games.

As opposed to many previous years, however, Seattle appears to be getting healthier as the season grows old. The team could possibly get a boost to its pass rushing abilities against the Cardinals if edge rusher Uchenna Nwosu is available. He has been practicing but has not come off injured reserve yet. That could happen this week.

Seahawks missing players at practice in the middle of the week is nothing to worry about

One might have read the posts of Seattle's Wednesday injury report with titles such as "Seahawks banged up." Do not worry, 12s. Many of these articles were written by writers who do not follow the Seahawks on a weekly basis. They do not know the way Seattle handles its slightly injured players. Resting a veteran in the middle of the week is a common occurrence with Seattle and not a true indication that the player will miss the next game.

Last Wednesday, Seattle had five players miss practice: Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, Leonard Williams, Jarran Reed, and newly-added AJ Finley. Every player on the list played in Seattle's Week 13 victory versus the New York Jets. Williams was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week for what he did against New York.

Williams, Lockett, Metcalf, and Abraham Lucas all missed practice last Thursday, too. Again, all played during the game. The point is that Seattle is not truly "banged-up" but more likely resting veterans who do not need the practice as much as some younger guys. If you read a scary article about the Seahawks being an injured bunch, those reports are mostly false.

On Wednesday ahead of the Week 14 Cardinals game, the Seahawks were also missing five players: Lockett, Lucas, Reed, Williams, and left guard Laken Tomlinson. The likelihood is that all these players will be fine by game time. Waiting until the Friday injury report to worry is seemingly the way to go under head coach Mike Macdonald.

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