National Football League

Okung's return still unclear for Seattle

Published Sep. 11, 2010 12:25 a.m. ET

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Seattle Seahawks rookie left tackle Russell Okung is already out for the season opener against San Francisco. He might not be ready for Week 2 either.

Seattle coach Pete Carroll said Friday that Okung's status is still unknown as he tries to return from a high ankle sprain suffered in Seattle's second preseason game.

Okung was hurt on Aug. 21 against Green Bay on the first play of the game when he got tangled with guard Ben Hamilton. He's been a spectator at Seahawks practices ever since.

''We're going to try and do more with him next week. We'll try to run him next week,'' Carroll said. ''He's done a great job in rehab and he is real anxious about it, as you can imagine. We'll see where he is next week.''

Okung was taken with the sixth overall pick in the April draft and instantly inserted to take over at left tackle for the retired Walter Jones. Okung was then late reporting to camp as contract negotiations on his six-year $58 million deal dragged through the first week of training camp. Okung managed just three plays in his second preseason game.

''It'll be a day to day process until we know more. ... With that kind of injury, until you really have to push off with it and load it up do you know how a guy's responding,'' Carroll said. ''We might not even be able to know that next week, so we'll see how it goes.''

Filling Okung's spot has become a complicated process. Seattle used converted guard Mansfield Wrotto for its final two preseason games, only to cut Wrotto last weekend as the roster was trimmed. The Seahawks also traded a conditional draft pick to Detroit to get Tyler Polumbus, who played for offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates in Denver and finally got Chester Pitts back into practice as he continued recovering from microfracture knee surgery.

Bates said on Thursday that Polumbus was likely to start on Sunday against San Francisco but a day later Carroll said it would be a game-time decision between Pitts and Polumbus.

''(Pitts) practiced enough to be ready to play in this game. Tyler did a really good job also so we're in really good shape there,'' Carroll said. ''It's important that we do this right with Chester and we bring him back when he's healthy and ready to go for the long haul.''