Monday brought confirmation of the bad news that was feared coming out of Sunday's win in Atlanta: Seahawks center Justin Britt has an ACL injury that will require season-ending surgery.

"It is an ACL, yeah," Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. "He has to have a major repair."

With Britt headed for injured reserve, Joey Hunt is currently Seattle's only healthy center on the 53-man roster—the Seahawks do have center/guard Kyle Fuller on the practice squad—so the Seahawks will "have to address the depth," Carroll said. "We're working at it."

While he can't help the Seahawks right now, another option at center late in the season could be Ethan Pocic, who was placed on injured reserve prior to Seattle's Week 6 game at Cleveland, making him eligible to return after an eight-game absence, which would mean a potential Week 15 return.

"He should have a chance to get back through the situation he's in, it's a few weeks away now," Carroll said. "We have to wait out the timeframe, it's an eight-week period, so he's still four or five weeks away."

Carroll also addressed a handful of other Seahawks injuries Monday:

CB Tre Flowers

Flowers missed Sunday's game with a stinger, but has a good chance to make it back this week.

"He feels a lot better today," Carroll said. "I think he made the comment that if we were playing tonight, he could play. He's that much better, he's pretty optimistic. He should be OK to work all week long and give himself a real chance to be back."

S Quandre Diggs

Diggs, who was acquired in a trade with Detroit last week, was held out of Sunday's game with a hamstring injury. He should be able to do more in practice this week, but Carroll said it's too soon to know if Diggs will play this weekend against the Buccaneers. 

"We've got to take him through the week and see," Carroll said. "He had a hamstring that he came to us with, and he had played with it, but we uncovered that we needed to take care of him to get him back fully. So he'll be running around this week—it was very controlled last week—and we'll see how far he can go. I can't say that he's for sure back yet for this weekend."

S Bradley McDougald

McDougald missed Seattle's Week 7 game with back spasms, and while he was active against the Falcons, it was as a backup and the Seahawks were hoping to give him another game off. McDougald did end up playing 11 snaps when Marquise Blair was dealing with cramps, but he should be ready for a bigger work load this week. As well as Blair has played in his two starts, and with Carroll noting that Tredric Thompson "played well yesterday, did a nice job," safety will become a very competitive spot when McDougald and Diggs are back to full health.

"We'll see how he does this week," Carroll said. "He's way better. I would like to get back to where we can mix our guys and do some things that we've been doing in the past. Marquise is going to play some more, he deserves to play, he's doing good. We need Bradley back out there too. Bradley has always been so flexible, he does so many things, he really helps us. So I'd like get him involved in some good ways."

DE Quinton Jefferson

Jefferson missed Sunday's game with an oblique injury, and his status for this week has yet to be determined.

"He's better," Carroll said. "We're going to have to see how he goes through the week here. We're still working on that oblique thing he has. They can't predict yet what's going to happen. So he'll go light on Wednesday, then we'll see how he does in the latter part of the week."

LT Duane Brown

Brown returned from a two-game absence caused by a biceps injury, and Carroll said Seattle's left tackle came out of the game feeling good. 

"He made it through," Carroll said. "He was doing pull-ups. Can you imagine that? Think about that body doing pull-ups."

TE Ed Dickson

Dickson, who had knee surgery during training camp, is eligible to return from injured reserve this week, and Carroll said the veteran tight end will practice this week hoping to play Sunday.

"He's going to go this week," Carroll said. "We're bringing Ed back with the thought—give him the chance to practice with the chance to play. He's worked really hard leading up to this time through his rehab and all where he has been preparing for the workload. We're very optimistic that he could (play) if he can make it through the week. We've got to see how he handles the workload, but his mindset is on playing."