RENTON, Wash. — Eight-time Pro Bowl guard Quenton Nelson, who the Seahawks acquired in a trade from the Indianapolis Colts last week, will not play Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals due to a preexisting knee injury that will require “a minor procedure,” coach Mike Macdonald announced Friday.

Macdonald said Nelson for now will not be placed on injured reserve, meaning the team anticipates him not having to miss more than four games.

“He had something that he was dealing with when he got here and we re-imaged it and it was aggravated to some degree so we’ve kind of done the due diligence, and everybody agrees that it’s best to take care of it now and play the long game,” Macdonald said. “So he will be week to week at this point.”

Macdonald did not give details of the injury, but an NFL Network report said Nelson “will have surgery to clean out some cartilage in his knee, sources say, as fragments had been causing an issue recently.”

That report indicated hope that Nelson could return for Seattle’s game at San Francisco on Nov. 29. After playing the Cardinals on Sunday, the Seahawks play at the Las Vegas Raiders on Nov. 15 and then will have their bye.

Nelson passed a physical with the Seahawks after he was acquired Oct. 27 for a 2027 third-round draft pick and 2028 fifth-rounder.

But Macdonald said Nelson was “dealing with (the knee issue) coming out of whatever game it was before the trade. It’s been aggravated since he got here.” Nelson was seen Friday wearing a sleeve on his right leg.

Nelson played every snap in his final game with the Colts against Minnesota on Oct. 25.

Macdonald said Grey Zabel will return to left guard Sunday and Anthony Bradford will start at right guard. Zabel moved from left to right guard after the team acquired Nelson and played that spot in Monday night’s 34-17 loss to the Bears. Bradford, who has been the team’s primary starting right guard when healthy the past three years, was benched.

Nelson tops a long list of significant players who were ruled out for Sunday’s game.

Macdonald said rush end Uchenna Nwosu (ankle), defensive lineman Leonard Williams (stinger), receiver Rashid Shaheed (knee), defensive tackle Brandon Pili (back) and left tackle Charles Cross (ankle) will all miss the game with quarterback Sam Darnold (quad, ribs), who was ruled out this week.

Cross, Shaheed, Nwosu and Pili sat out Monday night’s loss. Williams was injured in the third quarter and did not return.

Macdonald said backup Drew Lock, who has been dealing with a right-elbow issue, made it through the week and will start at quarterback in place of Darnold, backed up by Jalen Milroe.

Macdonald said Lock did “a great job” in practice this week while acknowledging the team has also limited his passing due to his elbow injury. Lock was inactive the past two games, suiting up as the emergency third quarterback with Milroe serving as the backup.

“We’ve had to manage it,” Macdonald said. “More precautionary than anything else.”

That meant Milroe, a third-round pick in 2025, also took some first-team reps in practice.

“To see him do that and operate the offense has been impressive,” Macdonald said. “He’s been working hard, and he’ll be ready to go if we need him.”

The Seahawks this week signed Adrian Martinez, who appeared in one game with the 49ers last season, to the practice squad to have a third healthy quarterback. He could be elevated from the practice squad for Sunday’s game.

Nelson showed up on the injury report as limited Wednesday and was listed as out Thursday. Macdonald said the decision for Nelson to have surgery was made “within the last 24 hours.”

Among the many reasons Seattle was excited to get Nelson is his durability. Nelson has missed only three games due to injury in his career, in 2021 due to a high-ankle sprain. He also missed one game that season due to COVID-19 protocols.

Nelson played every snap in seven of his eight games this season with the Colts, other than three plays during a decisive win over Washington on Oct. 4. He was not listed on any injury reports this season with Indianapolis. He was on the injury report last week with the Seahawks prior to the Bears game with the knee, though listed as a full participant in practice all three days, indicating that the team was aware of an issue.

Nelson, 30, can be a free agent at the end of the season, but the Seahawks are expected to try to re-sign him. They recently have traded for other players at midseason — such as Shaheed, Williams and linebacker Ernest Jones IV — in the last year of their contracts and re-signed them.

The move of Zabel from left to right guard to make way for Nelson seemed to be indicate that those two could form the team’s guard tandem for a few more years.

Macdonald said the team considered leaving Zabel on the right side so he could continue to get work there but decided to move him back to the left side and insert Bradford on the right, where both have their most experience.

“We’ve had those conversations,” Macdonald said. “You solve one problem at a time, and we felt like not having a specific timetable (on how long Nelson will be out) and having it be at least this game and x amount of practices and then going into the bye, let’s put those guys back where they’ve banked all those reps. That was the most-wise decision.”

The move also means Bradford returns to the starting lineup a week after he admitted that “it’s disappointing” he had been benched.

“As difficult as the situation is for him specifically, how he’s handled it has been spectacular,” Macdonald said of Bradford, who started all 17 regular-season and three playoff games in 2025. “Part of the messaging, too, is like, ‘Look, at some point, this isn’t like you’re not playing football for us anymore, so you’ve got to keep approaching the process the same way.’ It’s happened earlier than we expected, obviously, but this is the way things go. I’m confident in his ability to go play great football for us, and I know he’s excited for the opportunity.”

Macdonald on Tuesday had said there was a chance Williams, Nwosu, Cross and Shaheed could play against the Cardinals.

“Just didn’t get better,” Macdonald said of Williams. “All these guys, it’s just the way it goes, it didn’t improve.”

Sunday will mark only the second game Williams has missed as a Seahawk since coming to Seattle at the trade deadline in 2023 and only the seventh of an NFL career that dates to 2015.

Macdonald said there is no thought of putting any of the four on IR.

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