SAN JOSE, Calif. — It had to have been a welcome sight for members of the New England Patriots coaching staff: the defensive line triumvirate of Richard Seymour, Ty Warren and Vince Wilfork lounging on the grass practice field at San Jose State before the nitty-gritty of the day’s practice began.

Both Wilfork and Warren practiced for the second straight day yesterday, and as Mike Vrabel noted, it was nice to see defensive players returning to practice rather than missing sessions. New England has had a run of injuries on that side of the ball, particularly at linebacker.

But Wilfork, who suffered a shoulder injury in the first quarter in Seattle last week and did not return, said yesterday that he will play on Sunday against Oakland.

“Oh yeah, no question,” Wilfork said when asked about his availability.

The Pro Bowl nose tackle’s shoulder is still sore, but “at the same time everybody’s sore around this time. I’m happy to be back out there and hopefully it shows Sunday.”

Wilfork wanted to return to the field against Seattle, but wasn’t able to.

“I wanted to play, to be honest with you, but I’m not going to put myself in a situation — or my team in a situation — where I’m basically useless out there on the field and last Sunday I was because I couldn’t move my arm at all. But now it’s a lot better. I can move my arm, so that’s all I need to know.”

As long as he can “run and use my hands,” Wilfork said, he’ll be able to play, and he can do that and he’s getting ready for the Raiders.

With Wilfork missing most of the game and Warren missing all of the game due to his groin injury, Le Kevin Smith and Mike Wright saw more snaps. Wilfork talked about the reserves getting better as the game went on — the Seahawks had 134 yards rushing in the game, but only 38 of those were in the second half.

“Hopefully, we can start off how we left off against the Seahawks this week here because we can’t be giving up 14 points [in the first 18 minutes]; we can’t be giving up stuff like that that easy. It’s going to be tough for our offense to get back on track. Our main thing is to start off fast and continue to finish the games,” Wilfork said.

Warren practicing is a good sign; he has missed three of the last four games because of his injury, which is something he will have to deal with for the remainder of the season.

Seahawks a wake-up call

Head coach Bill Belichick has always been careful to make sure his players don’t overlook so-called inferior opponents, and while he certainly is doing the same this week, Heath Evans said the Patriots got a harsh dose of reality against the Seahawks, who were supposed to be a poor team at 2-11.

“It’s kind of good we had the game we had last week,” Evans said. “Seattle was kind of the same scenario — they had a bunch of losses racked up on them and, man, we were in that game until the end. If anyone needed their eyes opened to how the games are in this league we got it. Oakland is going to be tough.”

The injury report …

New England had three players miss practice yesterday: Bruschi (left knee), S James Sanders (abdomen) and LB Pierre Woods (jaw), as they held their second session of the week at San Jose State. Once again limited were: CB Ellis Hobbs (shoulder), LB Vince Redd (ankle), LB Vrabel (neck), Warren (groin), Wilfork (shoulder) and WR Kelley Washington (thigh).

Matt Cassel, Kevin Faulk and Randy Moss, all of whom missed or were limited on Wednesday due to non-football related issues, were removed from New England’s injury list.

smanza@projo.com