Already short-handed Seahawks lose safety Julian Love in second half

DETROIT — An already banged up Seahawks team got a little more so during Monday night’s 42-29 loss to the Lions as safety Julian Love departed in the first half with a quad contusion.

Coach Mike Macdonald said he wasn’t sure how serious the injury may be and if Love would be in danger of missing Sunday’s home game with the New York Giants — Love’s former team.

“I don’t really know what that means,’’ he said. “We’ll see. But he wasn’t able to finish, obviously.’’

Love was ruled out for the game early in the second half.

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Without Love, the Seahawks went with K’Von Wallace and Rayshawn Jenkins at safety in the second half with Coby Bryant filling in.

Quarterback Geno Smith also took a few hard hits in the game, especially at the end — he got up slow after being hit hard by Detroit’s Aidan Hutchinson on his final pass of the game, a desperation fourth-down toss into the end zone that was intercepted. He also came up slow after a hit on the play before that resulted in a roughing-the-passer penalty on former UW standout Levi Onwuzurike.

But Smith said not to worry.

“Yeah I’ll be fine,’’ he said. “Getting ready for next week.’’

The Seahawks entered the game with four defensive starters already ruled out — outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu (knee) and Boye Mafe (knee) and defensive linemen Byron Murphy II (hamstring) and Leonard Williams (ribs).

Macdonald said it was too early to say if any of those four will play against the Giants.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a function of how fast they can improve, and they’re doing everything that they can to do so, and we’ll see as the week progresses here.”

Mafe, Williams and Murphy all missed their first games of the season against Detroit, while Nwosu has yet to play this year while dealing with a knee injury suffered in the preseason finale against Cleveland.

The Seahawks began the game with a five defensive starters also out as the team declared weakside linebacker Jerome Baker inactive. He had been listed as questionable with a hamstring injury that also held him out of last week’s win over Miami.

Macdonald said the team went to the last minute hoping Baker might be able to play.

“We tried,’’ he said. “It just became clear that as the game kind of got closer, it was like, ‘Ah, he’s probably not going to be able to go.’”