The Seahawks pulled off a thrilling 35-30 win over the New England Patriots on Sunday night, but the victory didn’t come without a cost.
Safety Marquise Blair, Seattle’s nickel defensive back and also backup free safety, left the game with a second-quarter knee injury that Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said looks to be a “fairly serious” injury.
Blair began the game in his usual nickel role, but switched to free safety late in the first quarter when Quandre Diggs was ejected for a helmet-to-helmet hit.
“I don’t know how serious it is, he’ll be getting tested, MRIs and stuff like that to check out his knee,” Carroll said. “He has been such a cool part of this team already in this early part of the season, and such a significant part… I’m sick about it. This guy is just getting started, just getting going with us. It’s a real shame. It’s probably fairly serious because they had to help him off the field and all that kind of stuff.”
With Blair and Diggs out, Lano Hill took over at free safety, and Ugo Amadi played the nickel spot. While Diggs and Blair were missed, the secondary still found ways to make plays, including eight tackles by Ugo Amadi, including one for a loss, and a massive play by Hill on the last play of the game. Hill took out the fullback attempting to block him, forcing Cam Newton to turn the run inside, where L.J. Collier was there to undercut the Patriots quarterback for the game-ending tackle.
Blair’s injury unfortunately wasn’t the only one sustained on defense; linebacker Bruce Irvin also left the game with a knee injury in the fourth quarter.
“He has a sprained knee was what I was told,” Carroll said. “He was walking around, was in the locker room and all that afterwards, so we’ll see what happens.”
Irvin also provided an update of sorts on Twitter.
