Uchenna Nwosu’s injury status, from a play Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald declines to comment on
The one guy the Seahawks could least afford to lose again on their defensive front is hurt.
Uchenna Nwosu, Seattle’s top edge pass rusher also indispensable against the run setting the edge, left the team’s win over the Cleveland Browns Saturday night after four plays with a knee injury.
Nwosu went from helped off the field into the medical-observation tent behind the team’s bench. He then came out and got his left knee wrapped in ice. After about 20 minutes sitting on the bench and talking to a team doctor, Nwosu went into the locker room with a couple of assistants.
Asked following Seattle’s 37-33 win in the preseason finale how Nwosu is doing, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said late Saturday night: “Not sure yet. We’ll get it looked at (Sunday).
“We’ll probably know more in the next couple days.”
The Seahawks’ season begins Sept. 8 with the opener against Denver at Lumen Field.
The first regular-season roster must be set at 53 players, down from the current 90, by Tuesday.
Nwosu was injured when Cleveland starting guard Wyatt Teller pulled left and saw Nwosu rushing free on quarterback Jameis Winston. Teller lowered his head and shoulder and slammed his helmet and shoulder pad into Nwosu’s knee. The cut block spun around Nwosu, whjo then got hit up high by Browns running back Jerome Ford.
Referee Clay Martin announced he penalized Ford, not Teller, 15 yards for the chop block, defined by the league as a block below the waist by a blocker on a defender who is engaged with another blocker above the waist.
Nwosu immediately went down to Lumen Field chest-first, in pain. Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, trainers and a team doctor went onto the field to attend to him. After he got up he flexed his left knee and jogged awkwardly to the sideline. Tyler Lockett, not playing, was the first teammate to great him as Nwosu came off.
Macdonald talked to one of the sideline officials after the coach got back off the field following the play. As is becoming usual during a game for the new coach, he was not animated or gesturing.
Macdonald was asked after the game if he thought Teller’s block was a legitimate “football play,” or borderline dirty.
“I don’t really want to comment on it,” Macdonald said.
“Seemed like an obvious penalty.”
The injury happened one play after Nwosu was penalized for roughing Cleveland quarterback Jameis Winston as he was throwing into the arm of Seattle’s linebacker Boye Mafe incomplete on third down.
Nwosu co-led the Seahawks with 9 1/2 sacks in 2022. That earned him a three-year, $45 million contract extension.
He played one month of the 2023, then tore his pectoral muscle in early October. He had season-ending surgery.
The Seahawks’ run defense disintegrated last season without Nwosu taking on blockers, setting his edge at outside linebacker and thwarting outside zone and sweeps.
In the five games before Nwosu’s season-ending injury in 2023, Seattle was allowing 79.2 yards rushing per game. In the 11 games after Nwosu missed to finish the season, the Seahawks allowed a dismal 166.3 yards rushing per game. That included 200-plus yards by Pittsburgh and Arizona. Baltimore would have rushed for 300 in a November blowout of Seattle but the Ravens took two kneel downs at the Seahawks’ goal line to end that game.
Macdonald sees stopping the run as his first priority to fixing a Seattle defense that was 31st against rushing and 30th overall last season. Nwosu is the outside linebacker he demands.
He and the Seahawks on Friday traded pass rusher Darrell Taylor, who co-led the team with Nwosu in sacks two seasons ago, to Chicago because Taylor could not and would not defend the run.
After Nwosu got hurt Saturday night, 2023 second-round draft choice Derick Hall replaced him opposite Mafe as the outside linebackers on the starting defense.
Hall has been impressive this preseason. His emergence stopping the run and pressuring quarterbacks also made Taylor expendable, to the Bears for a sixth-round draft pick next year.
