By Gregg Bell

The News Tribune

Like leaves turning color and falling, Seahawks running backs drop.

Six games into the 2020 season, Seattle has an injury issue at running back. Just like the team did in 2019. And ‘18. And ‘17. And…

You know what they did the last time they face this issue.

Lead rusher Chris Carson got his second sprain in six games early in the Seahawks’ overtime loss at Arizona Sunday night. This sprain is in his foot. The 1,200-yard rusher from last season who had a sprained knee last month is in the final year of his contract. He wants to prove to the Seahawks and the NFL he can play an entire, 16-game season. He hasn’t done that in his four-year career, nor in two seasons in college at Oklahoma State.

That’s why Carson is vowing to play Sunday against NFC West-rival San Francisco at CenturyLink Field, as he did this month at Miami after his knee injury.

“Like we said, Chris has a mid-foot sprain. There is something there, that we could see,” Carroll said Monday afternoon, after Carson had a magnetic resonance imaging examination.

“So we just have to go — it’s just a week to week. We’ll see what happens. We don’t know. He was real determined to say, ‘I can go with it.’

“But we won’t know until the end of the week, for sure.”

His backup Carlos Hyde has a “tight” hamstring, Carroll said, which is to say there is concern about a strain.

Carroll said “we are hoping” Hyde can play Sunday. He will want to. The 30-year old began his career as San Francisco’s lead back.

Hyde replaced Carson in the second quarter and gained 68 yards on 15 carries. His 24-yard touchdown on a sweep left behind left tackle Duane Brown gave Seattle a 20-7 lead in the first half.

That was the first of three two-score leads the Seahawks gave up in Sunday night’s game.

“If Carlos is available to us, which we are hoping that he is, then we feel like we can keep the tempo going if Chris can’t make it” to play against the 49ers, Carroll said.

“(Hyde) did have a little tightness in the hammy that we’re watching.”

Third-down back Travis Homer has a bruised knee he got in the fourth quarter at Arizona. Carroll said an MRI did not show structural damage.

“So that’s something he has a chance to recover (relatively quickly) from,” the coach said.

Those three injuries left rookie DeeJay Dallas, who was inactive for the first few games, as the only healthy running back available for the end of regulation and overtime. That was a tough draw for the seldom-used rookie against Arizona’s increased and swarming blitzing in overtime, when Seattle threw on 10 of 11 snaps.

One of the reasons Homer plays almost all the third down when the Seattle go with one running back is his pass blocking, as well as his receiving ability.

So do the Seahawks need to add players at running back this week to be available for Sunday against even more injured San Francisco?

Well, it’s not that easy.

The NFL’s new, enhanced protocols for COVID-19 testing say any player who has not already done so at a given team facility must go through a six-day entry period of consecutive tests before he can even enter the building, let alone practice or play. That goes for players signed off the street as free agents, acquired in a trade, claimed off waivers — even players who for some reason leave the Seahawks’ daily COVID testing such as injured ones who go elsewhere for a family funeral, as cornerback Quinton Dunbar did during training camp.

That makes signing a running back who could play this week extremely unlikely.

“It’s really difficult,” Carroll said. “It’s really difficult to do that, to get guys in here in time where they could actually practice and have a chance to get guys in here in time where they could actually practice with us and have a chance to even be familiar with taking the hand off, you know?”

“We have some things that we can do, if we need to. We’ll look. We’re going to take it one day at a time and see if our guys can get back — with a couple of creative thoughts going forward, that we will keep in-house, for now.”

In December when the Seahawks lost Carson, number-two back Rashaad Penny and pass-catching back C.J. Proise to season-ending injuries, they indeed got creative.

Or do you forget Marshawn Lynch’s “Merry New Year” return on Christmas Eve?

This offseason, Carroll and general manager John Schneider did not close the door on Lynch, 34, playing for the Seahawks yet again in 2020. He played in the regular-season finale then both playoff games for Seattle last season into mid-January.

In Februrary, Carroll said when asked if Lynch might get a special, partial-season contract again this year with the team if need be, the coach said: “Never say never.”

Asked if the end of last season was the end of Lynch ever playing for Seattle again, Schneider said in February at the NFL scouting combine: “I don’t know that.”

And in May, Lynch told ESPN that his agent Doug Hendrickson, who has had multiple clients with the Seahawks and has a long-standing relationship with the Seahawks and Schneider, had “been in talks” into the spring with the team on him potentially playing for them in 2020.

Again, if need be.

Need is starting to be for Seattle at running back. Again.