Hawks better? We'll find out

RENTON - They're better, and that's the bottom line, according to Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider.

“I think we’re a more talented football team, absolutely,” he said. “We’re bigger. We’re faster. Football’s the ultimate team sport. You’ve got 53 guys, 45 on Sunday. Now, how those guys come together in terms of time frame, I can’t answer that. But we’re clearly a more talented football team.”

Schneider and coach Pete Carroll completed a third day of rapid-fire roster moves as the Seahawks made some final adjustments to the 53-man roster before Monday afternoon’s practice.

The Seahawks formally announced that they had waived defensive tackle Kevin Vickerson, safety Jordan Babineaux and fullback Owen Schmitt.

Replacing those spots on the active roster were running back Michael Robinson, defensive tackle Junior Siavii and defensive end Raheem Brock.

Seattle also added eight practice squad players – cornerback Marcus Brown, quarterback Zac Robinson, receiver Pat Williams, cornerback Ross Weaver, running back Chris Henry, linebacker Joe Pawelek, defensive end James Wyche and offensive guard Lemuel Jeanpierre.

One notable player still on the roster was running back Julius Jones, who the Seahawks reportedly released Sunday.

Jones reportedly took a reduction in pay to stay on Seattle’s roster as a reserve running back. Carroll said Monday that Justin Forsett will start, but the position remains open for competition.

Schneider said he apologized to Jones about the erroneous report leaking out over the weekend, which Jones said he appreciated.

“My weekend went business as usual, just like practice went business as usual today,” Jones said. “So everything you guys heard was false, man. I got a lot of phone calls and a lot of text messages, but I’m still here”

In all, the Seahawks spun through 41 roster moves over the weekend, and now have only 26 players left on the roster from the end of last season. But Carroll does not expect the roster turnover his team experienced over the past three days to take away from the team’s focus on preparing for the regular-season opener against San Francisco at Qwest Field on Sunday.

“It could challenge us if we focused on the wrong stuff,” Carroll said. “But we know that the guys that we have who have been working with us are the guys we’ve been counting on. And the other guys, we’ll bring then along as we can.”

Schneider spoke about the Seahawks releasing veteran receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh, who signed a one-year deal with Baltimore on Monday for the veteran minimum of $855,000, meaning the Seahawks will have to pay the remaining $6.15 million of his guaranteed $7 million salary this season.

“It was really just playing the young guys,” Schneider said. “Much like with Josh (Wilson), we felt like there was a group of guys behind him that were ready to take a step forward. T.J. is a good football player, he just happens to be a little bit older than the other guys, and we had some guys – Mike Williams and Deon Butler and Ben Obomanu – we had some guys step forward.”

Houshmandzadeh said he holds no grudges and wishes his former team well.

“I have plenty of years left in me to play football,” Houshmandzadeh told KJR-AM. “Was I shocked? Not really, because like I said, the past couple weeks I’ve just had a funny feeling about it and I relayed it to certain people. So I wasn’t surprised.

“So like I said, they play San Fran the first game. I wish them luck. I have friends on that team. I talk to a lot of the younger dudes on that team and try to help those guys out. And hopefully those guys play well.”

As far as the practice field goes, rookie offensive tackle Russell Okung is still recovering from a high-ankle sprain and did not practice Monday. Carroll ruled him out for the game this week. Veterans Chester Pitts and Tyler Polumbus split time with the first unit at left tackle.

Pitts is returning from microfracture knee surgery and hasn’t played in a game in nearly a year, and Polumbus was discarded by Denver a week ago. That’s not a good sign for Matt Hasselbeck’s protection on his blindside, but Carroll said the team will make do with what they have.

“Knowing that Tyler started and played at left tackle before and played both sides helps us at this time,” Carroll said. “We had kind of set our sights on Chester, he’s been in the system longer, been around us more.

“We’ll just wait and see, they’ll compete during the week and we’ll figure out what it looks like.”

Seattle also formally announced the hiring of Pat Ruel to replace Alex Gibbs as offensive line coach. Ruel coached with Carroll at USC for five seasons, where he implemented the zone blocking scheme, which should help in his transition to Seattle. Ruel had been ready to begin his season coaching the offensive line for the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League.

Carroll said assistant offensive line coach Art Valero will take the lead role this week as Ruel plays catch up.

Eric D. Williams: 253-597-8437 eric.williams@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/seahawks