There is no guarantee Seattle Seahawks rookie Malik McDowell will see the football field this season, but coach Pete Carroll isn’t ruling out his chance to possibly return.

“He’s really encouraged and that doesn’t mean anything in the immediate, like coming in the next couple weeks or anything like that, but I’m really happy for him,” Carroll said during his Wednesday press conference. “He feels like he’s getting back to ball, he’s coming to the meetings and he’s starting going again. So we’ll see what happens and we’re going to absolutely take care of him and wait it out and all that, but we’ll see what it means. We don’t know yet.”

McDowell was injured this offseason in a vehicular accident and sustained a significant concussion. He reported briefly to Seattle to be evaluated by the team’s medical staff at the start of training camp before returning home to Michigan.

Currently on the Seahawks Non-Football Injury List, McDowell re-joined his teammates in Seattle and began working with trainers.

“He is working out,” Carroll explained. “I just talked to him today and watched him run a little bit. He is doing some laps and some things. He’s getting some running in and he feels fine, he feels fine with it. There’s more things that will come in terms of evaluations to know how far and fast we can go.”

So while it remains to be seen whether or not the rookie will see game action this season, his slow but steady progress in recovery is a positive sign for Seattle’s top draft pick.