Guard Max Unger suffered a severe turf toe injury.

How severe? Well, he's going to undergo surgery on what coach Pete Carroll described as the plantar plate, and there is extensive recovery from the procedure.

"It's a three-month recovery," Carroll said. "It's a very delicate recovery, too, because I've seen it in the past. You can't hope that he can get back in half that time or something like that. It just takes a really long time."

That prompted the move to place Unger on injured reserve, thereby ending his season. So how long did he play with it in Sunday's game?

"Max got hurt real early," Carroll said. "Real early in the game. He just played through it. He just toughed it out, which is a remarkable job by him. This guy's got a toe that's torn up, and he just kept playing. Of course it hurt him. He couldn't push off. He couldn't change direction and all of that. It was certainly a factor in the way he played. He told us that he felt like his toe dislocated and then it popped back in.

"He didn't miss any plays to speak of. He just was a stud about it. He's just torn up that he can't stay with us and all of that. He was very emotional about it, and it was a very difficult decision, but we did everything we could with the information, the research, and he made a good, solid decision and we totally back him and support on him. It's just unfortunate we're going to miss him and have to go without him."

"The opportunity really goes to Stacy Andrews," Carroll said. "He's been playing it for the last couple of years, and we've seen him play both tackle and guard as we did our research in looking at him, and he can play both well. He gives us an experienced player who has to adapt very quickly to our system and our scheme. We were hoping that a couple of weeks now, you know, he would have some time to learn what is going on. He just is on a racehorse pace to try and figure it out now.

"But we get a big guy, a 345-pound guy, lining up at right guard. Hopefully, he will give us the ability to move the line of scrimmage and help us, and he'll take advantage of this opportunity and pick up where Max left off. Whenever something like this happens, you lose a guy, I look at it as an opportunity for the next guy who has to step up. So Stacy has no choice. We're going to call on him to do it and do a nice job for us."

Tyler Polumbus remains the starter at left tackle with Russell Okung already ruled out.

Sean Locklear remains at right tackle though he is absent from the team Wednesday, dealing with a personal situation.

Mansfield Wrotto returns to the team and he will be working on the right side of the line.

Wide receiver Mike Williams is not expected to practice Wednesday after suffering what Carroll described as a thigh bruise.

Linebacker Leroy Hill is back with the team, but just how big a role he fills remains a question. He is wearing a brace on his right knee -- which he injured the first week of training camp -- but said he's 100 percent.

"We're going to get out and practice and see what he looks like, see how he is," Carroll said. "He's excited about getting out there of course. He's a really good football player so we're going to try to involve him if he's able. So we're just going to have to find that out during the week. We're bringing him back to play and get not involved. We're not bringing him back to sit. We'll see what that information tells us, but I'm hoping he's going to be in there playing, and he'll get in the rotations.

"We like to rotate our guys, we like more guys to play than just our starters. I've always thought that way and try to keep guys fresh and keep them healthy and all of that. And he certainly can do that if he's up to speed playing-wise. I don't know that yet until we see him. We really won't know until Friday probably, the way he fits. We're telling him we're getting him ready to play."