The Seahawks waived seven players Sunday, beginning the process of reducing their roster to 53 players ahead of Tuesday's deadline.

Waived one day after Seattle played its preseason finale were tight end Sal Cannella, defensive end Jordan Ferguson, receiver Malik Flowers, cornerback Benjie Franklin, receiver Justin Marshall, cornerback Chris Steele and running back Wayne Taulapapa.

Those moves leave the Seahawks with 83 players on the roster, meaning more moves are coming in the next two days. Starting Wednesday, teams can begin forming 16-players practice squads, and Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said the hope is to keep as many players from the current roster around as possible.

"As we get to this weekend, you think about it, OK, here comes the change in the roster and all of that," Carroll said after Saturday's game. "Sixty-nine of these players are going to be with us, and that is a bunch of guys in this locker room right here that are going to stay with us. There will be some changes, there are always some, but the bulk of these guys are going to be with us, and I love that because these guys are connected and they know how we play, what we expect, how we prepare, how we talk about our challenges and all of that. And that's only going to make us better as we go through the start of the season coming up.

Reiterating that point later in his press conference, Carroll said, "I would love to keep this group, I would love this group to be together. We are going to try to do that if we can, we'll see how it goes. We will have some challenges about that. Right now, there are a bunch of guys that know how they fit on this team and their role and all that kind of stuff; I'd like to keep it as solid as we can. It's probably not possible to get it all, but I want those guys to know we want them in our locker room… I want to keep that going as best as we can because we have a chance to have a really good club."