Earl Thomas

The Seattle Seahawks will be without their best defensive player Thursday night against the Arizona Cardinals. Previously listed as doubtful, All Pro safety Earl Thomas will miss his second consecutive game.

Coming off a short week after missing last week’s loss to Washington, this can’t be considered too much of a surprise. And in reality, it shouldn’t hurt Seattle too much with Drew Stanton starting over the injured Carson Palmer for Arizona.

The idea here has to be to get Thomas 100 percent healthy for the stretch run. We saw first hand just how much Seattle’s defense struggled with him out of action for the final five games and the playoffs last season.

Hamstring injuries are generally difficult to overcome without rest. They also tends to stick around if a player comes back too early. Sitting Thomas for a game against a weaker opponent makes sense here.

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An editor here at Sportsnaut. Contributor at Forbes. Previous bylines include Bleacher Report, Yahoo!, SB Nation. Heard on ESPN ... More about Vincent Frank