SEATTLE -- Frank Clark has some advice: Be careful about your turkey burgers, or at least make sure they’re sufficiently cooked before you eat them.

He learned that the hard way.

The Seattle Seahawks’ defensive end said undercooked turkey burgers were to blame for a nasty case of food poisoning that put him out of commission from mid-week until game day. Clark missed all three practices and was mostly confined to his bed in between a pair of trips to the hospital to replenish the fluids he lost because he was throwing up “non-stop.” He said he dropped about 12 pounds and needed eight IVs.

“He was just sick as a dog,” coach Pete Carroll said. “Couldn’t get out of bed.”

You wouldn’t have known that by watching Clark on Sunday, at least not on the Los Angeles Rams’ first two possessions. He forced a fumble with a quarterback strip, after which QB Jared Goff picked up the loose ball and threw it incomplete. Then he came down with his first career interception on a Goff throw that was broken up by Tre Flowers and then tipped by Bobby Wagner.

The Seahawks needed a few more plays like those in their oh-so-close 33-31 loss.

“Don’t eat turkey burgers by Butterball,” Clark joked afterward. “... The Butterball ones, they’re kind of thicker so they can take longer to cook through, if you know what I mean.”

He struck a serious note when he put his passing illness in the context of the real-life adversity he’s faced since the end of last season. Clark’s father and three other family members died in a house fire in Cleveland in late January.

“Nothing I go through is going to be harder than that,” Clark said. “That’s how I look at this football stuff. I can go through anything in life but it’s not going to challenge me like that challenged me, so at the end of the day, me being in the hospital or not, not being able to practice, I didn’t look at that as an excuse for me not to go out there and get the job done on my side and to do what I had to do to be there for my teammates.”

Clark has been getting his job done despite some ailments. He had hand surgery late in the offseason that forced him to miss part of training camp and more recently has shown up on the injury report because of a hyperextended elbow suffered during the preseason. Those are just the injuries that are known.

“I’m not 100 percent right now with anything I’m going through,” he said. “I feel like you go through stuff all season. That’s why I say none of it matters at the end of the day because you’ve got to be able to come out here and compete. If you feel for your teammates, if you’ve got a heart, any type of heart or any type of nuts, you’ll go out there and compete no matter ... what’s going on.”

That Clark is still producing bodes well for him as he tries to secure an extension while playing out the final year of his rookie contract.

That the Seahawks haven’t gotten a lot of pass-rush production outside of Clark and defensive tackle Jarran Reed is the problem. Their three sacks apiece entering Sunday represented two-thirds of Seattle’s total through four games. Mychal Kendricks has two, but he’s suspended indefinitely. He’s also an inside linebacker, which goes to show the trouble the Seahawks have had getting to the quarterback with their front four.

That's been one weakness for a defense that has been more competent overall than many expected. And it hasn't been at all surprising given that so much of the defensive firepower that Seattle lost was up front. Michael Bennett was traded, Cliff Avril’s neck injury forced him into an apparent retirement, Sheldon Richardson left in free agency and the Seahawks never got to see if Malik McDowell could help pick up all that slack.

Barkevious Mingo has been a nice addition. He has a sack and registered a QB hit against the Rams, officially one of only two hits for Seattle not counting Clark’s strip. But his duties as the strong-side linebacker on early downs means he can only have so much of an impact as a pass-rusher.

Veteran Tom Johnson and second-year defensive tackle Nazair Jones looked like they could help as interior rushers, but Seattle released Johnson in a head-scratching move and Jones has seemingly taken a tumble down the depth chart. He was inactive again Sunday despite not being on the injury report.

Dion Jordan has been a non-factor while working his way back from a pair of leg injuries that kept him out the entire offseason.

Clark is the only sure thing Seattle’s pass rush has. It showed Sunday.

“I feel like games like this, where we allow it to get away from [us], it’s on guys like the D-line,” Clark said. “When you look down at the board and you see the stats and you see the pressures and you see the quarterback hits and the sacks, that they aren’t where they’re supposed to be, I take it personal. So at the end of the day what I’m going to do is go back in there, let everybody know we’ve got to refocus, get back in the lab and go out to London [to face the Oakland Raiders] and prepare to get this W.”