Drew Lock Starts for Seattle With Sam Darnold Ruled Out

Seattle's quarterback room is down to the healthy-ish. The Seahawks have ruled Sam Darnold out for Week 10 with rib and quad injuries, and Drew Lock will start against the Raiders — a backup getting a start while carrying an injury report of his own.

Darnold didn't practice on Wednesday, and his return could come in Week 12 after Seattle's bye. That timeline turns the Raiders game into a one-week bridge: get through it with the backup, get to the bye, and let the starter's ribs and quad heal without a game testing either.

Lock's own week hasn't been clean. He was limited by a right elbow injury and an oblique problem, though he resumed throwing on Thursday and sounded unbothered by the oblique specifically. The injury is on the back of the muscle on his right side, and Lock told reporters he thinks that makes it easier to throw through than the left-side oblique injury he dealt with two years ago.

Seattle has recent evidence he can run the offense. In the Cardinals game, Lock went 19-of-28 for 175 yards and a touchdown in a 17-3 win — no fireworks, no disasters, exactly the profile a team with a strong roster wants from a spot start.

His career line through Week 9 reads 632 completions in 1,046 attempts for 6,966 yards, 39 touchdowns and 28 interceptions. He's been a starter, a backup on a Super Bowl LX-winning team, and most of the stops in between. Sunday asks for the steady version.

Seattle's broader injury picture improved slightly as the week went on — tackle Charles Cross resumed practicing Thursday after missing time with an ankle issue — but the quarterback situation defines the week. The Seahawks built this season around Darnold, and the plan for Week 10 is simply to survive his absence without spending the bye week's recovery time. A win over the Raiders with the backup does exactly that. Anything else makes Week 12's target date feel a lot less comfortable.

It's also, quietly, an audition the whole league watches. Backup quarterbacks who win spot starts in November get remembered in March, when contracts get written. Lock has been the promising prospect and the cautionary tale at different points in his career. One clean Sunday against the Raiders, on a sore elbow and a bad oblique, writes a different line on the résumé — the veteran who held a playoff team's season together for a week.

The rest of Seattle's report is long — Charles Cross, Quenton Nelson, Brandon Pili, Jarran Reed, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Leonard Williams all missed practice time this week for various reasons. But the headline is at quarterback: the Seahawks' Week 10 runs through a backup with a sore elbow, and the bye week can't get here fast enough.