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Brady HendersonESPN
SEATTLE — Tre Brown‘s promising rookie season appears to be over.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said early indications are that Brown, Seattle’s starting left cornerback, needs season-ending surgery on the patellar tendon injury he suffered Sunday in Seattle’s 23-13 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
It happened in the third quarter when Brown was about to contest a third-down throw to A.J. Green. He went down immediately in pain and eventually walked into the locker room with a pronounced limp.
Brown had been a bright spot in Seattle’s dismal 3-7 season. The fourth-round pick from Oklahoma began the year on injured reserve after hurting his knee in the preseason, then had a strong NFL debut in Week 6, which included a third-down stop in overtime of Seattle’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. As Seattle continued to rotate on the left side, Brown continued to play well enough to earn the starting job over Sidney Jones.
Jones started on the right side Sunday as D.J. Reed was inactive. Carroll had no update Monday on when Reed will return but said his knee injury isn’t severe. Carroll was happy with how Jones played against Arizona and said Bless Austin, who came in when Brown went down, was “pretty solid for his first time out” save for a play in which he slipped while breaking on a completion.
Austin, a former starter with the New York Jets, hadn’t played a snap on defense for the Seahawks this season before Sunday. Their cornerback depth also includes John Reid, whom they acquired in a preseason trade with the Houston Texans.
Carroll shed some light on running back Chris Carson‘s upcoming neck surgery, saying it’s his understanding that Carson has a disc issue that needs to be fused. He reiterated that the team has been told that Carson will able to return next season.
“That’s a surgery that can get him back somewhere late in the spring,” Carroll said. “That’s what I’ve heard. So we’ll see what happens with that.”
Carroll described Rashaad Penny‘s hamstring injury from Sunday as “slight.”
Alex Collins has been the Seahawks’ primary running back since Carson last played in Week 4, but they gave Penny his first career start against Arizona. Seattle’s oft-injured first-round pick from 2018 gained 18 yards on the game’s opening play but hurt his hamstring in the process. He got only one more carry and seven more snaps after that.
“We don’t know how extensive it’ll be,” Carroll said. “It’s not a bad injury but there’s something there, so we’ve just got to make sure and take care of him and see what happens.”
Collins and DeeJay Dallas tied for the lead among Seattle’s running backs Sunday with 18 snaps apiece. Penny played eight snaps, while Travis Homer played five.