Former Alabama cornerback in line for 2024 NFL debut on Sunday
Former Alabama cornerback Josh Jobe is in line to make his debut for the 2024 NFL season on Sunday, and he might do it in the Seattle Seahawks’ starting lineup.
The Seahawks will play the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday without cornerbacks Riq Woolen and Tre Brown, who are out with ankle injuries, and Artie Burns, who went on injured reserve this week because of a toe injury.
“Josh Jobe will come up and play,” Seattle coach Mike Macdonald said on Friday. “Then the other guys on the roster will get a great opportunity to go out there and show what they can do. Excited to see them play.”
The Seahawks’ healthy, active-roster cornerbacks for Sunday are starter Devon Witherspoon and rookies Dee Williams and Nehemiah Pritchett, a fifth-round selection from Jackson High School and Auburn.
Pritchett played 19 defensive snaps in Seattle’s first five games this season before the injuries put him on the field for 20 in last week’s 36-24 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
Williams has been strictly a special-teamer.
To help fill the void, the Seahawks elevated Jobe and cornerback Faion Hicks from their practice squad to make them eligible to play against Atlanta.
Hicks has never played a defensive snap in an NFL regular-season game. But Jobe has played 252.
Jobe made the Philadelphia Eagles’ regular-season roster coming out of the preseason in 2022 as an undrafted rookie. He played in 11 games that season, almost exclusively as a special-teamer.
In 2023, Jobe played in every Philadelphia regular-season game and made three starts. He had 240 defensive snaps and a team-leading 323 special-teams plays.
The Eagles waived Jobe at the end of the preseason in August, and he has spent the 2024 season on Seattle’s practice squad without getting into a game.
The Seahawks and Falcons square off at noon CDT Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. FOX TV affiliates in Alabama are scheduled to televise the game.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.