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With limited cap room, Seahawks may have to create some to add a LT

Back from their bye, the Seattle Seahawks (3-2) will return to practice Monday to begin preparations for Sunday's game against the New York Giants (1-5) at MetLife Stadium.

Here are four numbers to keep in mind this week:

$1.9 million: Seahawks' cap space

Seattle has roughly $1.9 million in cap space to work with right now. The NFL Players Association website lists $1.98 million, while Over The Cap has it at $1.84 million. Either way, that's not much when you consider that teams like to keep a few million dollars in cap space free to get them through the season. This will complicate the Seahawks' efforts to add a left tackle -- Branden Albert remains in play for Seattle -- but it shouldn't make that task impossible. Albert was scheduled to make $8.875 million this season before leaving the Jacksonville Jaguars over the summer.

If the Seahawks were to sign him, it would likely be for significantly less than that. The veterans minimum for a player of Albert's service time -- nine seasons -- is $900,000. But remember, whatever the figure ends up being would be less in reality when prorated to account for the weeks that have already passed. Even if the prorated amount is greater than what Seattle has on hand, the team could create cap space by restructuring another player's deal. The Seahawks did that recently with Doug Baldwin, converting most of his 2017 base salary into a signing bonus in order to clear room for Sheldon Richardson. The downside there is that it pushes cap charges onto future seasons. That's why general manager John Schneider has said he doesn't like resorting to that -- though he made an exception for Richardson. If he wants Albert badly enough and if the price is reasonable, he could swallow that pill again.

84 percent: Seattle's defensive snaps

The percentage of Seattle's defensive snaps that Michael Bennett has played this season is at roughly 84 percent, most among the team's defensive linemen by a wide margin (Richardson is next at 67 percent, per Pro Football Reference). When healthy, Bennett has consistently played more than any other Seahawks defensive lineman since he became a starter in 2014, with Cliff Avril next among that group.

This is notable with Avril (neck/spine) out indefinitely and Bennett's status uncertain this week because of a plantar fascia injury suffered against the Los Angeles Rams. Frank Clark played well while starting in place of Avril in that game, but it would be a lot to ask of Marcus Smith and Branden Jackson to play at the same level if Bennett misses any time and they have to fill in. For that reason, Bennett's status bears watching this week.

148: Rushing yards for the Giants

The Giants had 148 rushing yards in their stunning Sunday night win against the Denver Broncos, who had allowed a league-low 50.8 yards per game entering Week 6. Seattle's upcoming matchup with the Giants doesn't look quite as easy as it did before they went into Denver and upset the Broncos 23-10 for their first win of the season -- especially with New York running the ball as effectively as it did while also allowing only 46 yards rushing and a 2.7-yard average on defense.

The Seahawks' run defense has been much better since allowing runs of 61 and 75 yards in consecutive weeks earlier in the season. Tavon Austin's 27-yard run for a Rams touchdown was a slip-up, but Seattle did well to hold Todd Gurley to only 3.1 yards per carry in that game.

9: Starts for Ethan Pocic

Rookie offensive lineman Ethan Pocic made nine starts at guard in college. Those all came at right guard during his 2014 sophomore season at LSU, where he mostly played center. The Seahawks will have a decision to make at left guard with Luke Joeckel expected to miss at least one game and possibly more following arthroscopic knee surgery that was scheduled for last week.

Pocic and Mark Glowinski are the two most likely candidates to fill in. Glowinski started all 16 games at that spot last season, so he'd make plenty of sense. At the same time, though, Pocic was a 2017 second-round pick, and if the Seahawks pass on him in favor of Glowinski, it would be fair to wonder why he hasn't seen the field.