Jimmy Graham’s return highlights Seahawks’ practice Wednesday

Jimmy Graham’s return was the definite highlight of Wednesday’s practice, with the tight end seeing his first action on a football field since last Nov. 29 when he tore his patellar tendon in a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Graham talked for a good 12 minutes after practice in what were his first comments since the injury and did not give a timeline for when he will return but said he was excited just to be back on the field.

“When you’re away from it for as long as I’ve been it’s very sweet when you get the opportunity to do it again,” Graham said.

I’ll have more on Graham a little later.

From an “uh-oh” standpoint, the biggest negative appeared to concerned Jarran Reed, the rookie defensive tackle from Alabama expected to fill in for the departed Brandon Mebane at nose tackle. Reed went out about two-thirds of the way through practice when he appeared to be stepped on by Will Pericak during a one-on-one pass-rush drill suffering an injury to some part of his lower left leg/ankle.

Defensive coordinator Kris Richard said he did not know any details on Reed. Reed was down for 10 minutes or so, but then got up under his own power  and briefly stood on the sidelines and then later was taken off the field on a cart (Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, who typically provides injury updates, did not meet with the media following Wednesday’s practice).

Shortly after practice, however, Reed Tweeted that he is “perfectly fine” and will be at practice Thursday and that he wasn’t carted off but just wanted to spare himself the walk inside.

The DL rotations looked quite a bit different all day with Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett getting rest days and Jordan Hill, Quinton Jefferson and Sealver Siliga still out. That had the likes of Brandin Bryant and Justin Hamilton getting some significant work with the starting unit.

Here are a few other quick notes….

— RT J’Marcus Webb went to the sidelines with a knee injury early in practice.He had ice on the knee early on and then had it off afterward, and eary indications are that it was not serious — he did not go to the locker room or anything like that. But without Webb, the OL alignments looked a bit different, usually with Bradley Sowell at left tackle and Garry Gilliam at RT.

— RG Germain Ifedi got into a tussle with linebacker K.J. Wright, who seemed to be surprised that Ifedi had taken offense to anything he had done. Richard Sherman quickly rushed to Wright’s defense and also seemed to have a tone about him questioning why Ifedi was taking any shots at Wright. Ifedi sat out for a few plays and was replaced by veteran Jahri Evans, who got some significant work all day at right guard, usually with the second unit. Wright and Ifedi could be seen having a long talk later in practice, which ended in a handshake. After practice, Ifedi and QB Russell Wilson also had a long talk which also ended in a handshake. The general vibe seemed to be that Ifedi may need to learn when to tone it down some in practice.

— WR Doug Baldwin and SS Kam Chancellor were each back in pads during early work but did not take part in the full team drills.

— Bryant and LT George Fant also got a quick post-practice battle with a few punches thrown before it got swiftly broken up. Bryant called it just a training camp thing. “It’s just camp man,” Bryant said. “I’m sure that’s going on with 32 other teams, every college team wherever you go the same thing is going on. You are just going hard and sometimes you butt heads but at the end of the day you are all brothers and you are trying to make each other better. It’s just the heat of the moment.”

— MLB Bobby Wagner also appeared to be getting a rest day which had Brock Coyle working with the starters during some of the early drills with UDFA Steve Longa getting most of the work with the ones during the team drills (Coyle is also coming off of an oblique injury).

— Sherman came up slow after one play when he and Jermaine Kearse went to the ground for a low pass that Kearse ended up receiving. But he stayed in.

— Paul Richardson had one of the highlights of the day with a leaping grab over Sherman near the sideline.

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