I think it's safe to say that the Seahawks are going to phase out Ziggy Ansah, if not simply remove him from the lineup all together. Pete Carroll said last week that Ansah was 10 pounds away from where he needed to be and that he still hadn't regained all the strength in his shoulder.
So it wasn't a huge surprise to see Shaquem Griffin play his first defensive snaps of the season (13 to be exact) because, let's face it, he truly couldn't have been worse than Ansah. I'd still temper expectations from what Griffin can do as a pass rusher. He's vastly undersized at just 227 pounds, but the benefit of Griffin is that you get his motor. His work rate is far superior to Ansah's, and he's also better in coverage. That counts for something.
Seattle tried to rotate the two on Monday, but Ansah was quickly pulled out of the game after an egregious offsides penalty on San Francisco's final drive of regulation.
"It's really clear, more than it has been, that we might be able to build a role that could be a factor," Carroll said of Griffin on Tuesday. "We have to work at that more so just to use his speed. He's instinctively a good rusher. He's just not very big. You have to do special things with him. We'll put that together and see if we can make that a good complement to what we're doing."
Griffin is a smart football player, and it will be interesting to see what he does with the opportunity that appears to be before him.