Seahawks get good news on guard Grey Zabel’s injury

SEATTLE – The Seahawks were breathing a significant sigh of relief Monday as imaging results on the knee of left guard Grey Zabel showed no significant injury, coach Mike Macdonald said during his regular day-after-game meeting with the media.

Zabel, the 18th overall pick in the April NFL draft who has started every game, departed in the fourth quarter with an injury suffered on a 1-yard touchdown run by Kenneth Walker III that cut the score to 21-19, which turned out to be the final score of the game.

“Really fortunate,” Macdonald said. “We avoided a significant injury, which is really positive.”

Macdonald indicated there was still a chance Zabel might miss a game, something that will become clearer as the week progresses.

“I’d say the word I heard (about his prognosis) was day-to-day,” he said. “You know how that goes — could be day-to-day, could be a week, could be more than that. But nothing significant, which is a huge positive.”

Zabel was replaced for the final series — which consisted of 10 called passes — by second-year player Christian Haynes. It was the first action of the year for Haynes, who had been on IR until Saturday with a pec issue.

“I thought he did a good job,” Macdonald said. “There’s some things he’s going to clean up and he’ll do that.”

Macdonald also praised the play of Olu Oluwatimi, who filled in at center for Jalen Sundell, who was placed on IR on Saturday after suffering a knee injury against Arizona.

The Seahawks started the same five for each of its first nine games of the season before Sundell went down and Oluwatimi played against the Rams.

“I thought Olu did a tremendous job stepping in, being ready to go (and) decisive with his calls,” Macdonald said. “Again, things that we need to clean up as a front as an offensive line, but it’s not for lack of effort and we’ll get those tings fixed. We’re just continuing to grow. You see a lot of great things.”

Darnold needs to get to next play

Macdonald said his review of Sam Darnold’s four interceptions against the Rams revealed that the quarterback was at times trying to make a play where there wasn’t one to be made. And the lesson in that, he said, is being OK with taking a sack or an incompletion and moving on to the next down.

“The majority of them came late in downs where we just need to get to the next play,” Macdonald said. “Sam has played on time and in rhythm a lot this year and he’s made a lot of plays for us doing that. He’s also made a lot of plays off-schedule. You don’t want to take the playmaker out of him, but you also understand when we need to be able to get to the next play versus putting the ball in jeopardy down the field.”

Two of the picks came as Darnold was getting hit on third down, notably his final one when Darnold leapt in traffic to throw a pass over the middle to tight end Elijah Arroyo that was picked off by Darious Williams. Darnold acknowledged on that play he was trying to avoid taking a sack and moving out of field goal range — the play snapped at the L.A. 36.

The two others came on first down.

Darnold has 10 interceptions for the season as well as 14 overall turnovers.

Macdonald and players vehemently defended Darnold following the game, notably linebacker Ernest Jones IV, who used colorful language to indicate that he thinks anyone questioning whether Darnold should be the team’s QB is, well, mistaken.

Macdonald said that Jones “speaks for the whole team. I think that’s the way everybody feels.”

Macdonald said neither he nor Darnold nor the rest of the team planned to spent much time wallowing in Sunday’s loss, turning the page to this week’s game at Tennessee by Monday afternoon.

“We fell short yesterday — there’s no other way to slice it,” he said. “The Rams, they won the game. They won it fair and square. They played better than us and coached better than us and that’s what happens. It’s a tough one. But all these losses, you can’t let them beat you twice. You’ve got to go back, take it on the chin, got to move forward, you’ve got to learn from it and that’s what we’ve done today.”

Macdonald laments lost seconds

The Seahawks were unquestionably up against it when they got the ball back at their own 1-yard line with 1:41 remaining and one time out left, trailing 21-19.

They almost overcame that, using 10 plays to move to the Rams’ 43 where a 61-yard field goal by Jason Myers came up short and to the right as time ran out.

Macdonald said in reviewing the drive that he wished the Seahawks wouldn’t have used as much time as they did on the first play, a 4-yard pass to AJ Barner.

Barner broke to the sidelines on the play but was tackled just in bounds and the clock kept running. That also meant Barner had to run a ways to get back to the huddle.

The next play didn’t snap until 1:16 was left, the most time that elapsed on any play of the drive.

“We needed to be able to improve on that,” he said.

Macdonald also noted that the big decision on the drive was whether to call a time out when the Seahawks picked up a first down at its own 26 on a play that snapped with :40 remaining. They decided to keep the time out and the flexibility of being able to use all the field. But 18 seconds elapsed before another play got snapped.

Macdonald said the team needs to work on being in such situations on the road and with the challenge of having to use a silent count.

Macdonald added he knew there was risk in time running out before they could have gotten a chance at a field goal when they ran a play with five seconds left.

A quick out pass to Rashid Shaheed gained six yards to the L.A. 43 and the Seahawks were able to get a time out called quickly.

“About as thinly as you could slice it,” he said.

Myers had hit a 61-yarder at SoFi Stadium in 2020 and a 57-yarder earlier in the game, so the Seahawks felt it was realistic he could make the kick.

“We were right at the line (to make the kick) if not behind it,” Macdonald said. “So we didn’t exactly put (Myers) in a great position right there. But to his credit he’s going to go out there and give it his best. … In my experience, if he hits it clean, we’ve got a chance. It’s right at the edge of the line. It’s probably better odds than throwing up a Hail Mary.”

Knight in concussion protocol

Macdonald said linebacker Tyrice Knight, who left the game with a concussion after making a tackle on a kickoff in the first quarter, remains in the concussion protocol.

“Saw him today; he’s in good spirits,” Macdonald said. “But he’s in it. So we’ll see how he passes all the hurdles (during the week). … Honestly don’t know how long it’s going to be.”