Shaheed’s absence should mean a bigger role for second-year receiver Tory Horton, who likely will also handle some of the return duties usually handled by Shaheed. With Cross out, Josh Jones, who also filled in for Cross late last season, starting three games, will start at left tackle.
“Josh will play left tackle,” Macdonald said. “He’s done a good job when he’s gone in there and played. There was a stretch of time last year where we were missing Charles and Josh came in and played good football for us and that’s what we expect. That’s why we want him here, that’s why he’s such an important part of our team. Shoutout to the guys for being able to bring him back because he’s a good player.”
The Seahawks will be getting linebackers Drake Thomas and Chazz Surratt back after both missed multiple games due to ankle and calf injuries, respectively, and Thomas will return to the starting lineup, Macdonald said.
In non-injury news, Macdonald said new guard Quenton Nelson, who arrived in a trade last week, has fit in well while quickly getting ready to make his Seahawks debut after eight standout seasons in Indianapolis.
“On brand of how you expect him to go,” Macdonald said when asked about Nelson’s first week. “It’s great to see him in Seahawk gear. I’m excited to see our guys play. They’ve done a great job this week with the changes, and the focus is on being able to stack off of last week and the rest of the year. We’ll have to figure out some solutions as the game goes on; going against a good team. That’s par for the course and we’ll go from there.
“Our coaches did a great job of calibrating what the easy transition is for Quenton, what’s a stretch, how much of the stretch do we want to go for this week? Finding what the right medium is between what we can go out and nail and execute versus what we already want to be able to do. Problem solving one day at a time.”