Seahawks injuries: Best case scenarios

Jamal Adams, Jordyn Brooks, Riq Woolen: Seaside Joe 1569

To write “the worst case scenario” version of article would be almost pointless. The worst case is that Seahawks fans won’t see Jamal Adams or Jordyn Brooks for a long time, if ever again in green and blue.

But the latest reports on Adams are more optimistic than previously feared, so how much different might the Seahawks’ outlook be if the injury news falls under the best case scenario? That’s the subject of today’s Seaside Joe.

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SS Jamal Adams

Best case scenario: Start of training camp

I wanted to write that around this time a year ago that there were no injury concerns for Adams, but then I was reminded that he broke a finger at the start of training camp. This coming one month after the Seahawks were excited to announce a “dope” defensive plan centered around Adams and Quandre Diggs.

"It's really exciting," Adams said during minicamp. "We brought in some coaches that really are eager to teach everybody. It's a defense that I know [Quandre] Diggs and I are really excited to be a part of. It's very aggressive to where we can be interchangeable, to where we can make a lot of plays on the back end."

Adams did practice with a cast and miss very little time, but Seattle didn’t make it to the end of their Week 1 win over the Denver Broncos before losing him for the entire season.

Now Bob Condotta reports “optimism” that Adams could be ready for the start of training camp after recovering from a torn quad, although it still feels like Pete Carroll is constantly cautioning fans against getting their hopes up because of the nature of the injury and the many complications that come with it. However, if Jamal Adams is ready for all of training camp and if he doesn’t miss any practices throughout the duration of preparing for the season, it means that the Seahawks can form a secondary that features him and Diggs at safety in some combination with Julian Love.

If Adams misses some, most, or all of camp, then it means that Love is preparing for an entirely different type of role.

It sure seems as though the Seahawks are set at cornerback if all of their plays are healthy there, which I’ll get to in a moment, so how will Seattle utilize Diggs, Adams, and Love together? That’s the problem that Pete hopes he has this time, instead of the problem that brings us back to the days of Steven Terrell and most recently, Josh Jones.

LB Jordyn Brooks

DT Bryan Mone

Best case scenario: First quarter of the season

I lump these two together only because they’ve been lumped together in injury updates for the simple fact that they don’t have an ETA and don’t seem likely to participate in training camp. On the bright side, the season is still a little less than three months away and we can’t rule out either of them avoiding the PUP list or injured reserve to start the season.

I believe PUP now only requires missing four weeks, which could mean that both Brooks and Mone are out for the beginning of the season but are available to return as soon as Week 6 against the Bengals on October 15…the Seahawks have a Week 5 bye.

The game in Cincinnati is four months away, meaning another 120 days or so for Brooks and Mone to rehabilitate in time for football at two positions seemingly lacking in quality talent right now.

At linebacker, Seattle does have Bobby Wagner back again. But Devin Bush isn’t the player he was as a top-10 rookie with the Steelers in 2019 and there isn’t another linebacker on the roster with significant or any experience.

At nose tackle, fourth round rookie Cameron Young is in the lead to start over the likes of Myles Adams and whoever else may or may not (Jonah Tavai, Austin Faoliu) make the final 53-man roster. I don’t know how excited Seahawks fans should actually be for the return of Bryan Mone, but at this point it seems better to have another option than to not have him. His 983 career snaps is 760 more than the combined total of Adams and Young.

CB Riq Woolen

Best case scenario: Start of training camp

There’s been no panic over Woolen’s arthroscopic knee surgery which seems…generous. The Seahawks finally find an adequate replacement for Richard Sherman (many years later) and he needs surgery in his second offseason, whereas Sherman didn’t suffer any injury until his seventh year in the NFL.

I’m not saying that Woolen’s injury should worry you, I’m not saying that just because Sherman was the picture of health that it means all players should be created like that, and I’m not comparing the two. I’m only stating the obvious, which is that I’ll be comfortable with Woolen’s injury situation when it is no longer a situation.

By all accounts so far, Woolen will be ready for the start of training camp at the end of July. If the Seahawks have to dig into their cornerback reserves, right now it seems like Artie Burns and Tre Brown are taking reps at his position and that Seattle likes to see Devon Witherspoon in the slot.

Will Dissly is also expected to be ready for the start of training camp. If not, the Seahawks will be able to give additional reps to Tyler Mabry, Noah Gindorff, and Griffin Hebert to find out if they have anything worth potentially holding onto with one of those tight ends.