AP

The Seahawks have listed receiver Percy Harvin as doubtful. But even with the “doubtful” label, there’s still a chance he’ll play.

Coach Pete Carroll told reporters on Saturday that a decision won’t be made until the day of the game between Seattle and New Orleans. Even though it sounds like the decision sort of already has been made.

“We’ll go all the way out to Monday with this to see what happens,” Carroll said regarding Harvin. “But unfortunately, he didn’t make it back like we thought he would. So it’s more important for us to get him back for the longer haul. So if we wait another couple of days here and get through the week. . . . I thought with the days off, it’ll all work together. But it didn’t work out quite right for us. So unfortunately, he didn’t make it.”

The problem, as Carroll explained it, is that Harvin emerged from the Week 11 game with a sore hip, and that it hasn’t recovered the way Carroll had hoped.

“[I]t’s just responding from the load of the game and he only had 19 plays and 16 active plays in there,” Carroll said. “So it wasn’t very much. But he’s just sore and so we don’t want to push beyond that right now. It’s not worth it.”

And so the Seahawks will wait for the soreness to subside, as they also will hope that the soreness doesn’t eventually morph into a structural issue.

“That’s the only way we can go right now and we don’t see any big issue, structurally,” Carroll said. “There’s nothing, we’ve looked at everything.”

Everything is riding on Monday night’s game, which will go a long way toward deciding the top playoff seed in the NFC. The Seahawks then travel to San Francisco next Sunday.