RENTON — Seahawks guard Luke Joeckel is expected to miss at least four to five weeks after having surgery on his knee.
Joeckel started the first five games of the season for Seattle while working back from a torn ACL sustained last season with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Joeckel signed a one-year deal with the Seahawks in March and was eased back into a full workload during the offseason.
“We’re going to be optimistic that he can make it back in four-five weeks. We’ll see what happens. Maybe that’s possible, maybe it isn’t. We’ve got to see how he heals and how he comes back around,” head coach Pete Carroll said. “He definitely needed to get some things cleaned up and that was taken care of and everything went beautifully. He’s very optimistic as well so we need to see what happens here.”
Carroll said Joeckel wasn’t limited in what he could do directionally during games but that it would just take him several days to recover after each game played.
“It just got to the point where it wasn’t getting any better and we needed to do something for the long haul,” Carroll said.
Joeckel is expected to be back to full strength when he returns from the surgery. The team won’t know exactly what his timeframe will be for three weeks or so.
Meanwhile, Mark Glowinski and second-round pick Ethan Pocic will get the opportunity to take over for Joeckel in the interim.
“It’s a great opportunity. I’m looking forward to it, looking forward to the challenge and just going to have some fun,” Pocic said.
Glowinski started all 16 games at left guard for Seattle last season before being shifted to the right side this offseason. He started the first two games of the year at right guard before being replaced by Oday Aboushi.
Pocic has been active for all five games as a reserve but hasn’t played on the offensive line.
“Neither one of them have played enough reps here lately so conditioning would be an issue,” offensive line coach Tom Cable said. “A little bit different styles of play which together, I think, would be really good. Let’s tag-team it and as we go through this off time with Luke we’ll figure out what’s best.”
Cable said the hope is that they would ultimately settle on one option in the coming weeks after giving Glowinski and Pocic a trial run this weekend.
The Seahawks brought in free agent tackle Branden Albert for a workout last week and he remained in contact with the team through the weekend. However, they have not reached any agreement. According to NFLPA records, Seattle has just under $1.9 million in salary cap space so they are hamstrung in the level of contract they can offer Albert, who has been unemployed since he was released by Jacksonville in August.
Albert is primarily a left tackle. However, he would give Seattle a veteran option at left tackle if the team wanted to make a change from Rees Odhiambo, who has started all five games this season at the position.
