Seahawks injury updates on Ken Walker, Zach Charbonnet

"He's not at practice, so we're concerned about that," says Pete Carroll, plus other Seahawks training camp news from Sunday: Seaside Joe 1611

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll met with the media after practice on Sunday and finally shed some light on why the top two running backs haven’t been on the field for the last several days. As you could have probably guessed it’s because they’re both hurt.

Monitoring the health of Ken Walker and Zach Charbonnet was one of the 5 main storylines I said Seahawks fans should monitor in the second week of training camp in Sunday morning’s bonus article and that wasn’t the only topic that came up during practice. Join the premium members club to read that and over 100 bonus articles per year.

Otherwise here’s the 1,611th day in a row of a free article about the Seahawks, covering what was reported from training camp on Sunday plus more Seahawks and Seahawks-adjacent news that I’m passing along. If you want to help support more Seahawks content like today’s bonus article and FREE training camp practice updates, please consider subscribing now:

Ken Walker, Zach Charbonnet out again

Pretty much every topic that I addressed in Sunday morning’s bonus article on “storylines to watch at camp this week” was broached in some way at practice. One of those was monitoring the availability of Seattle’s top two running backs and once again both were held out. Walker has missed the last four days with a minor groin strain, Charbonnet has missed the last three with a shoulder issue.

There is optimism growing of seventh round pick Kenny McIntosh being a “steal” but it’s way too early to make any solid predictions about his future.

Pop Quiz Hotshot: Which running back picked by the Seahawks in the seventh round or later went on to lead the NFL with 14 rushing touchdowns in his second season? Answer posted at the bottom of the article.

Carroll wanted to emphasize that Walker “doesn’t feel bad” but that they don’t want to aggravate his groin injury and make it worse. It sounds like the Charbonnet injury is more mysterious, but we can’t speculate as to the real extent of time he could miss. Seattle’s depth is DeeJay Dallas, McIntosh, Bryant Koback, and the recently signed Wayne Taulapapa.

Damien Lewis missed Sunday practice because of an illness.

Noah Fant comes off PUP

Fant was the most surprising name to start camp on the PUP list. And he’s also the first one off of it. The remaining five are Jamal Adams, Jordyn Brooks, Bryan Mone, Austin Faoliu, and Riq Woolen. Carroll added another surprise injury on Sunday: Olu Oluwatimi has a sore wrist.

Olu was with the starters on Sunday, but Evan Brown should be expected to rotate back up with the 1s on Monday.

Tre Brown stands out

Without Woolen, Tre Brown has been sort of “starring” opposite of Mike Jackson and it seems as though those two would start on the outside if Seattle released a depth chart today. Obviously, Woolen would start if healthy, but it seems like cornerback injuries are becoming as common as running back injuries and I don’t just mean on the Seahawks.

What are the Seahawks going to do if they enter Week 1 with a fully healthy cornerbacks room? I don’t know, buy lottery tickets? Then use the money to join the Super Joes club?

For now, I’d think that Woolen, Jackson, and Coby Bryant hold the lead in the nickel formation, followed by Witherspoon, who got reps on the inside in dime formation (4 CBs on the field) on Sunday. It doesn’t sound as though Brown is giving up that easily though. I haven’t heard anything about Jerrick Reed II through the first week of training camp, so I assume he’s not getting anywhere near the starting rotation. Haven’t heard from Artie Burns either.

Linebackers go back and forth with Geno Smith

On Saturday, I wrote about how it’s kinda good to not hear anything about Geno Smith at camp. On Sunday, it felt like we heard a lot: Both good and bad.

It seems Geno had a few more great throws but was also picked off at least a couple of times, if not a few.

On these reps, there were reports that Bobby Wagner looked GREAT in coverage, while Devin Bush added an interception. But there was also at least one touchdown given up by Devon Witherspoon, who is still getting acclimated to camp after missing the first two practices. It seems that Jaxon Smith-Njigba is making plays in camp every single day, which Pete Carroll also addressed on Sunday… That’s coming up after the weekly gratitude:

More notes coming up in a minute, but first a shoutout to my newest “bosses” aka the ones who pay my salary: Welcome to the Regular Joes premium members club if you are Kamawai, Seaside Sunny, Longview, and Enrique! I greatly appreciate your support. Same to Jr. N, Seasider Craig, R Dilla, Zebas, and Mike D, you are all supremely attractive.

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On JSN: “He’s hitting it off with Geno really well right now”

Pete Carroll said that Jaxon Smith-Njigba is a “tremendous athlete” and that there’s nothing they can’t give him right now that he couldn’t handle. I have to say again, I had NO bias for JSN going into the draft. There were plenty of people who liked him a lot more than I did, but then I was forced to do a deeper study after Seattle picked him 20th overall.

Since then you could argue that I do have a bias, but I try to do this job as objectively as possible, and in the last couple of months it has become my opinion that Smith-Njigba was a massive steal. Even being the first receiver off of the board.

Pete says that JSN already has good chemistry with Geno. The Seahawks ranked 25th in 11 personnel last season (3 WR, 1 RB, 1 TE) but that number is going to go up. Way up. And the era of JSN as an outside receiving threat may be inevitable.

Godwin Igwebuike signs with Falcons

Pack it up, pack it in, let me Godwin…My condolences to all who wanted the Seahawks to bring back Igwebuike. It appears that dream is over, he signed with Atlanta. I don’t have any answers as to who will win the kick returner job, we should have some idea after preseason gets underway.

Rashaad Penny down 10-15 lbs with Eagles

The Eagles signed Penny to a one-year deal in the offseason and on Sunday he told reporters that he’s down from a 235-237 playing weight to 225. Uhhh, if that was the ideal, Rashaad…what took so long? Penny probably isn’t competing with D’Andre Swift, who is more of a receiving threat to Philly, but instead battling Kenneth Gainwell for carries.

“One of the reasons Julian Love is in Seattle”

The Giants decided not to re-sign Julian Love in the offseason. Why not? Sometimes it’s a red flag when a team doesn’t keep a player, especially one who was so good last season. But sometimes it’s because they have a cheaper replacement in place because they got lucky. At Sunday’s training camp, Love’s replacement Jason Pinnock made an incredible one-handed interception which drew a reaction of “This is why New York was comfortable losing Love” from the Giants blog Big Blue View. Watch the play here.

Love is starting at strong safety with Adams on PUP. Where he and Adams fit in when both are healthy is a big question with no answers.

More proof that the Broncos actually wanted Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers is angry at Sean Payton for his remarks about Nathaniel Hackett, pulling a T.O. “that’s my quarterback” response out of the Jets quarterback. The Broncos hired Hackett to replace Vic Fangio and reportedly wanted to trade for Rodgers, but then went for Russell Wilson after Green Bay rebuffed their advances. Hackett was fired with two games left last season and was hired by the Jets to be their offensive coordinator, leading to a trade with the Packers for Rodgers.

Just in case you needed any more proof that Denver only hired Hackett because they thought Green Bay would make a deal, Rodgers called him “arguably my most favorite coach I’ve ever had.”

It’s interesting to consider other timelines that transpire if the Broncos trade the Packers for Rodgers. Where does that leave Wilson? Would the Eagles have traded for him and kept Jalen Hurts on the bench? There were rumors that Philly desperately wanted him at one point. We’ll never know, but it seems like it was close to happening. I think because Rodgers won MVP the year before, that’s the only reason he’s not in Denver right now.

Is Trey Lance finished?

By all accounts, Brock Purdy is going to be the 49ers starter. And after that, it really seems like Sam Darnold keeps building a bigger and bigger lead over Trey Lance to be the backup. San Francisco may not completely give up on Lance and just keep him on the roster as QB3 because of how often they seem to need to dip into the reserves, but please Seahawks fans take a moment to bask in the trade package to go get this player two years ago:

Pick 12 in 2021, Picks 29 and 102 in 2022, Pick 29 in 2023 to move up to Pick 3 for Lance. He’s made four starts, he’s thrown 102 passes, and he seems bookmarked to be third-string in his third season. He also got $34 million fully guaranteed and his $9.3 million cap hit in 2023 is only $800,000 less than Geno Smith

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Answer: It happened twice! The Seahawks picked David Sims in the seventh round (169th overall) in 1977 and he scored 14 touchdowns in 1978. Then Seattle picked Derrick Fenner in the 10th round (268th) in 1989 and he led the NFL with 14 touchdowns in 1990.