Mike Macdonald shares plan for returning Seahawks pass rusher

For the first time in what seems like forever, Seattle Seahawks pass rusher Uchenna Nwosu's health seems to be looking up.

Nwosu, 28, had an excellent first season with Seattle in 2022, tying for the team lead with a career-high 9.5 sacks. Unfortunately, injuries have limited him to just six games in each of the past two seasons. The Seahawks' pass rush has survived, but it still stings to see a promising player derailed by injuries.

Fortunately, the Seahawks received some good news on Sunday when Nwosu passed his physical, clearing him to return to practice after offseason knee surgery. As one might expect, the coaching staff plans to ease him back in slowly but surely.

"It's exciting," head coach Mike Macdonald told reporters Monday, per the team's website. "Because we're, to my knowledge, ahead of schedule, which is really cool. I know Uchenna's been working his tail off which is par for the course with him. Our training staff just had a great plan. Guy's done a great job. He's going to be back with us… We have a plan to kind of ramp him up going into the first game and give us an option to possibly get out there early in the season."

Uchenna Nwosu's timetable still unclear

Oct 30, 2022; Seattle, Washington, USA; Seattle Seahawks linebacker Uchenna Nwosu (10) celebrates following a sack against the New York Giants during the fourth quarter at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images | Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

Additionally, Macdonald and co. still haven't picked an exact return date for Nwosu yet, as they want to make sure he's fully healthy before putting him back out there.

"I think it's probably too early to come to any conclusions, but I think we have a preliminary timetable that gets us around the beginning of the season. There's some checkmarks, checkpoints we have to hit along the way, so the first thing is just doing individual [drills], going through walkthroughs, stay sharp mentally, which he'll be ready on all that, but we have to get to do that first."

The Seahawks open the regular season against the San Francisco 49ers on Sept. 7, but the odds of Nwosu being ready for that game appear slim to none. Whenever he's ready, though, they'll be happy to welcome him back to the field.

Uchenna Nwosu's timetable still unclear

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