Seahawks' Quenton Nelson to have knee procedure, out vs. Cardinals a week after trade

The Seattle Seahawks traded for Quenton Nelson to steady their interior line. One game into his time in Seattle, the guard is headed for a knee procedure. Head coach Mike Macdonald said Friday that Nelson will miss Sunday's home game against the Arizona Cardinals and is week-to-week. The team does not plan to put him on injured reserve, Seattle Sports reported, and the club is calling the procedure minor.

The New York Post cited NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, who reported that the surgery will clean out cartilage in the knee. Macdonald said Nelson already had the problem when he arrived from Indianapolis and that it got worse after the trade. "Everybody agrees that it's best to take care of it now and play the long game," Macdonald said, according to Seattle Sports. Nelson, an eight-time Pro Bowler, played all 63 offensive snaps in Monday's loss to Chicago. The Colts traded him last week for a 2027 third-round pick and a 2028 fifth-round pick.

The timing explains why Seattle is skipping IR. FOX 13 Seattle noted that the Seahawks have only one more game before their bye, so Nelson gets two weeks of recovery while missing just one game. The line now goes back to how it looked before the trade. Grey Zabel returns to left guard and Anthony Bradford comes back in at right guard. Zabel had started there for the first seven games before he moved to the right side for the Chicago game.

Nelson is one of seven Seahawks ruled out for Sunday. Quarterback Sam Darnold is out with rib and quadriceps injuries from the Bears game. Defensive tackle Leonard Williams is out with a shoulder stinger. Left tackle Charles Cross, receiver Rashid Shaheed, linebacker Uchenna Nwosu and defensive tackle Brandon Pili will each miss a second straight game. Drew Lock will make his second start of the season.

What it means against Arizona

Seattle is 4-4 and has lost three of its last four games, most recently a 34-17 home loss to Chicago that came after a 20-3 win over Kansas City. The two losses before that were by a combined five points, to San Francisco and Denver. This will be Seattle's second game against Arizona this season. In Week 2 the Seahawks won 31-7 in Arizona, and Lock started that game, completing 19 of 26 passes for 235 yards and three touchdowns, per FOX 13.

The market is giving the patched-up roster plenty of credit. On this site's board, which tracks 12 venues, Seattle is favored at -365 on the moneyline at Novig. The Cardinals are +355 there, and the best Arizona price anywhere is +360 at DraftKings. Novig lists Seattle at -8.5 at even money, while theScore Bet has the Seahawks at -8 for -115. The total is 39.5 across the board. Novig has the over at -102 and the under at -108. The best over is +100 at theScore Bet and the best under is -106 at FanDuel. The venues differ by only a few cents on every market, and sportsbook hold runs from about 3% to just over 5%.

With Darnold, Cross and now Nelson out, Lock will play behind the same guard pairing Seattle used for most of the first half of the season. The open question is how much of the 31-7 Week 2 result carries over to this lineup.