Bad News For Seahawks: Carpenter Out For Season

The Seahawks received another piece of crushing news Thursday: right tackle James Carpenter, the club’s 2011 first-round draft pick out of Alabama, will miss the remainder of the season with a torn ACL.

Carpenter sustained the injury during practice Wednesday. He underwent an MRI Wednesday night and the results, released Thursday afternoon, disclosed that he had torn a knee ligament.

“It’s never happened to me in my career,” said assistant head coach Tom Cable. “In 25 years I’ve never lost a guy in a pass-protection drill, so it’s new for me too.”

Added Cable: “Oh, we’ll be fine. Listen, it’s a shame. Injuries are part of the game. But we’re going to be fine. We’re all confident in that and I have no worries. We’re just going to move forward and continue to get better.”

The injury to Carpenter, who had started every game but the opener at right tackle, comes three days after the Seahawks declared right guard John Moffitt out for the season with a knee injury. Moffitt was hurt during the first quarter of Seattle’s 22-17 victory over the Baltimore Ravens Sunday at CenturyLink Field.

Breno Giacomini will replace Carpenter at right tackle.

The Seahawks used their first (Carpenter) and third selections (Moffitt, Wisconsin) in last spring’s draft to rebuild their offensive line. Moffitt started the season working on the line’s left side, but switched to the right side.

Until two weeks ago, the Seahawks featured one of the worst rushing offenses in the league, ranked 29th (out of 32). But at Dallas Nov. 6, the line sprang loose Marshawn Lynch for a season-high 135 yards. He tore through the Ravens for another 109 yards.

This marks the first time in Lynch’s career that he has posted back-to-back, 100-yard rushing efforts.

“I felt like we were on the right path,” Cable said, referring to the past two games. “We were kind of heading in the right direction. We had talked prior to the Dallas game that the next two weeks I thought would be a real challenge for them; and how we came through that I thought would really give us an indicator of where we were at.

“Obviously, we came through both games the right way. We gave up one sack in each game and ran the ball better – not for a lot of yards against Baltimore, but the consistency of getting three or more (yards) was there and that’s really what you want against a defense like that.”

Paul McQuistan will start at right guard in place of Moffitt when the Seahawks take on the St. Louis Rams Sunday at the Edward Jones Dome.

McQuistan started three games for the Seahawks earlier this season when Robert Gallery was sidelined with a groin injury.

“We move forward,” said Cable. “We don’t change who we’re trying to become or what we’re trying to accomplish for our offense and for this football team. We don’t back down, we just go forward. We’re pretty lucky because we have Breno (Giacomini) here and Paul (McQuistan), so we’ve got some veteran guys. Paul has a number of starts in his career and Breno has been around the league a little bit, so we’ll be fine.”