Despite being two weeks removed from the trade that sent him from Detroit to Seattle, safety Quandre Diggs has yet to make his debut with the Seahawks.
Diggs had excess blood drained from his injured hamstring last week and was unable to practice with the team in the lead up to their game against Tampa Bay. Head coach Pete Carroll said on Monday that Diggs is set to return to practice this week.
“We’re anticipating he’s going to practice and go full-go,” Carroll said. “We’ll see what happens with that. We’ll just take it one day at a time. We’re really excited to finally get him out there. He really hasn’t had a chance to do anything yet. Barely started a little bit the first couple days he was here. Never even ran full speed, but he has worked out this past week in order that trainers were letting him go.”
Diggs sustained the injury when he was still with the Lions. It forced him to miss Detroit’s loss to the Green Bay Packers and he was still less than 100 percent for his final game with the Lions the following week against the Minnesota Vikings. While he passed his physical with Seattle, his hamstring has proved problematic in getting him on the field.
“He didn’t get worse here because he hasn’t done enough to do anything. He came in with an issue that we had to deal with,” Carroll said.
Diggs is under contract for two more seasons with Seattle and will have plenty of time to prove to be a valuable acquisition for the Seahawks. The defense could use some reinforcements as well as the Seahawks have been gashed at times by Baltimore, Atlanta and Tampa Bay over the last three weeks.
“I’ve seen him on film. He looks pretty special,” Carroll said of Diggs. “He has a good history of making plays and all that. I want to see him when he mixes with our guys and really just take it one step at a time with no expectations on how much he would contribute or play or whatever. I’m just going to see what happens.”
Marquise Blair and Bradley McDougald are the current starting safeties after Tedric Thompson was placed on injured reserve last week. Diggs could also be an option at nickel cornerback to compete with Jamar Taylor when he’s back healthy and up to speed in Seattle’s defense.