RENTON — The Seattle Seahawks made official Tuesday what already was a foregone conclusion: wide receiver Percy Harvin will be on the sidelines for at least the first six weeks of the season.
For now, Chris Clemons has a chance to return sooner.
The Seahawks made the last of their roster moves Tuesday to reach the league-mandated 75-man limit, including putting Harvin on the reserve physically unable to perform list. The move was not unexpected and means Harvin will not be eligible to play until Week 7 — although the likelihood is he won’t return to the roster until later in the season.
Seattle opted to put Harvin on PUP and not use up an injured-reserve spot, where the player would be designated for possible return later in the season.
“It’s going to take a good month before we will be able to figure out if he is even going to have a chance to come roaring back out of it,” coach Pete Carroll said when he was last asked about Harvin on Aug. 16. “But the signs are very good and so we’ll see what that means. We’re not putting any number of weeks on him because we don’t know.”
Along with Harvin, the Seahawks placed defensive end Greg Scruggs and cornerback Tharold Simon on the reserve PUP list and linebacker Korey Toomer on the reserve, non-football injury list.
Additionally, the Seahawks waived wide receiver Donavon Kemp and terminated the contract of veteran defensive back Will Blackmon.
Noticeably absent from the PUP list is Clemons, who continues in his recovery from a major knee injury suffered in the playoffs last January at Washington. Clemons has been on the practice field every day at a spectator throughout training camp and at times has been seen doing individual conditioning and he tries to get back in time to start the season.
There has never been a formal timetable established for when the Seahawks expected Clemons back on the field. But the decision not to place him on the reserve PUP list at this time — he still could go on it later this week when rosters are reduced to 53 players — might be an indication that Seattle believes Clemons will be back within the first month of the season.
On Monday, Carroll said he’d watched Clemons go through a rigorous physical workout, but noted the defensive end had yet to take the next step of having contact.
“To take the next step he needs to start pushing people and all that. He’s coming along great, and he’s making great progress,” Carroll said. “I don’t know how close he is weeks wise, but when I talked to him today he said that he feels really good, and I’m excited that he’s getting closer to it. He’s not favoring it or anything like that.”
Blackmon likely would have made the Seahawks’ roster a couple of years ago, but just happened to play at the deepest position on the team. The six-year veteran signed a one-year deal worth $715,000 in base salary in February with the Seahawks but simply couldn’t overcome the depth with the improvement of young cornerbacks Byron Maxwell and Jeremy Lane , and the signing of veteran Antoine Winfield.
Notes: Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was a guest at Seahawks headquarters Tuesday, sitting in on some meetings and speaking to the team. “That sacrifice that it takes to be great and to be great so often is kind of what he was talking about for the most part and having that discipline, too … Just working hard, continuing to work hard, continuing to believe in yourselves, and ignoring the noise and that kind of stuff. That’s the main message he gave and it clicked with us,” Seattle QB Russell Wilson said. … DT Brandon Mebane (groin) and Tony McDaniel (unspecified) did not practice on Tuesday.
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