(Reuters) - The Seattle Seahawks' vaunted "Legion of Boom" secondary will be healing wounds this offseason as cornerback Richard Sherman will have elbow surgery and safeties Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas may also go under the knife.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, whose team lost the Super Bowl 28-24 to the New England Patriots, told reporters on Monday that Sherman's left elbow injury, suffered in the NFC title game, will require Tommy John surgery. The procedure is common for baseball pitchers with elbow injuries.
Chancellor might also need surgery after injuring his knee in Super Bowl practice, the coach said.
Thomas will seek a second opinion on a shoulder injury he suffered during the NFC Championship against Green Bay, but is expected to require surgery, nfl.com reported.
Cornerback Jeremy Lane left the game with a "significant" broken arm, Carroll added, after making an interception on a Tom Brady pass and will also require surgery.
"Last night was an extraordinary game with extraordinary effort from guys who played through unbelievable issues, and they didn't even know it during the game," Carroll told a scrum of reporters.
"For Earl and Sherm to make it through this game and play and have the problems they had is one thing that was notable.
"For Kam Chancellor to play in this game was like super human stuff. He shouldn't have been able to go."
Carroll said the shock ending of the game, in which the Patriots intercepted a Russell Wilson pass on a second and one from the one-yard line with 20 seconds left, was hard for the Seahawks to deal with.
"This is a very young team, with a lot of future and a lot of hope that we're going all kinds of places," said Carroll, whose team won last year's Super Bowl in a rout over the Denver Broncos. "Everybody knows that.
"With that, there's the shock of disappointment that this game goes away from us and goes the other way right at the finish line.
"It's something we have to deal with, that in the long run will make us stronger and we'll be able to put into some kind of perspective. It's pretty hard to do that right now."
