The knee injury tight end Jimmy Graham suffered in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 39-30 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers will require season-ending surgery, according to Seattle head coach Pete Carroll.
"Jimmy did hurt his patellar tendon today and they tell me already that he's going to have to have surgery on that," Carroll said. "We've loved Jimmy Graham coming to our team and we're very grateful that he's been a part of it and we're going to miss the heck out of him the rest of the season."
Carroll didn't have a timetable on a return for Graham, who was carted off the field with an air cast around his right leg after going up for a pass in the end zone from quarterback Russell Wilson, but did confirm the tight end's season is over. Graham left the team's Week 12 game having caught four balls for 75 yards, upping his 2015 total to 48 catches for 605 yards to go along with two touchdowns.
"It's tough, especially a guy like him," tight end Luke Willson said of Graham's setback. "First off, he's having an unbelievable game with some big plays and everybody loves him, great guy in the locker room and extremely hard worker. For a guy with his type of talent, to see him work as hard as he does, it's pretty cool.
"You don't ever want to see that happen to anyone in the NFL, let alone a guy like Jimmy. I know Jimmy's probably down right now, but I've gotten to know him these past six, seven months, he'll attack this rehab and be back next year."
Elsewhere on the injury front, defensive tackle Demarcus Dobbs and fullback Will Tukuafu left Sunday's game with head injuries and did not return.
"They had concussion symptoms, so we had to keep them out," Carroll said. "We'll take great care of those guys and be very patient with whatever we have to do to get them back."
Carroll didn't have any further update on the status of cornerback Marcus Burley, who injured his ankle against the Steelers.
