Seahawks get some good injury news (finally) as Jerrick Reed is closer to returning

The Seattle Seahawks have struggled with injuries this season, but, to be fair, most teams seem like they have. Maybe Seattle's loss to the Detroit Lions in Week 4 can partly be racked up to the Seahawks being without six starters, but Seattle has not shown enough defensively in the last three games to imply they could have done anything to stop Detroit. Seattle's mentality simply hasn't been good.

The hope when Seattle hired Mike Macdonald as head coach this offseason was that he would bring a new approach to the aggressiveness of the team. Under former head coach Pete Carroll, the defense seemed to lay back and react to what an offense was doing instead of trying to dictate play. So far, Seattle's defense appears to be the same as it has been over the last several seasons.

Maybe the team simply needs more players who are not afraid to play with unguarded aggression. The Legion of Boom had lots of those kinds of players, but the current team has far fewer. One of the players who does play with a LOB mentality, though, is special teams ace Jerrick Reed II.

Jerrick Reed II could be a few weeks away from playing for the Seahawks again

Reed tore his ACL in Week 11 of last year and has not been able to practice while recovering. Reed was so productive on special teams - he only played 29 defensive snaps last year - in a bit more than half a season that he was named to the Pro Football Writers of America's All-Pro team as a special teamer. He had nine tackles in the third phase of the game.

More than simply getting a bunch of tackles, he played with a speed and confidence that inspired his teammates. He should be able to do the same when he returns in 2024, and that kind of fierceness is what the team needs. The safety fights for every inch of the field, and other Seahawks need to learn from that.

Reed has now been cleared to return to practice so his 21-day window will open to be activated to the 53-man roster. Should he not be activated, he would revert to the physically unable to perform list and miss the rest of the season. The hope, of course, is that Reed will come back in three weeks and make the kind of impact he made as a rookie last season, both physically and in his approach to how aggressive he plays.

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