Seahawks coach Carroll: Chancellor ready to play vs. Bears

Seattle Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor, who ended his 54-day holdout on Wednesday, will play Sunday against the Chicago Bears, coach Pete Carroll said Friday morning during his weekly radio show.

“He’s looked like he’s in just rare form,” Carroll said of how Chancellor performed in practice on Wednesday and Thursday. “He’s been working out really hard, he’s really lean and ready to go. He was anticipating coming back with the thought that he worked out really hard to get here so he looked great both days, the hard days of the week. So he looks like he’s going to be able to play some football and we are looking forward to that.”

Carroll said the Seahawks will monitor Chancellor to make sure they aren’t asking him to play too much as he sees his first live action since the Super Bowl last Feb. 1.

“We’ll have to see how his timing is, making his tackles and making his hits and fits in the running game and all that kind of stuff,” Carroll said. “He knows where he is supposed to go but the practice is important there is something to that. Some guys can handle it a little better than others (not having practice much) and I think Kam is one of those guys. He may be a little bit rusty and we’ll try to protect him and make sure he doesn’t play too much.”’

Asked about the fact that Chancellor will play after just a few days of practice this season, Carroll said that system “has really been built” around his talents so “it’s very familiar to him. He’s very, very good at it and there is nobody that understands it better than he does.”

Carroll said he feels Chancellor has been “embraced” by his teammates and everyone in the organization since returning and that “his attitude has been great.”

He said he anticipates Chancellor getting a good reception from Seahawks’ fans at CenturyLink Field Sunday saying “I hope everybody will receive him in that fashion.”

The Seahawks will have to make a roster move to make Chancellor eligible to play. The team received a roster exemption this week so that Chancellor could practice. But the team will have to remove a player from its current 53-man active roster by Saturday afternoon to allow Chancellor to play Sunday against the Bears.

Carroll said on Wednesday that Chancellor weighed in at 226 pounds with six percent body fat, a little less than his listed weight of 232 pounds.

Carroll also again addressed reports that tight end Jimmy Graham is frustrated with his role in the Seattle offense.

Carroll repeated what he said earlier in the week that Graham is frustrated only in the team’s 0-2 start.

“He knows what the (play) calls are, he knows how the game could go,” Carroll said. “So he understands that very well. But he wants to help, too, and we want him to help, just like everybody does. So hopefully that will smooth out a little bit more consistently. And there is really a great direction for us. We’ve been on it throughout, but it just didn’t work out last week and so we are hoping we will get him involved and it will be a factor that our opponents will have to deal with that we’ll really see how that adds tot the rest of the offense and I think it will be a dynamic facet once we get it all organized and in motion.”

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