Turns out L.J. Collier’s injury is one for the (medical) books.
A sprain coach Pete Carroll Thursday called “rare” will keep the first-round draft choice out indefinitely and cause the Seahawks to scrounge the marketplace for something else also rare — a decent rush end who is unemployed.
Carroll said the injury Tuesday in practice was a bad sprain high in the right foot near the ankle. Collier, who was pass blocking in an 11-on-11 drill in full pads, needed to be carted off the field.
“It’s not a garden-variety sprain, at all,” Carroll said after practice. “It’s an unusual one for us. We really haven’t had a guy who’s sprained his ankle just like this. So that’s why we are going to be very slow, to make sure we know what we are doing with it.”
Media speculation previously was that he might miss the entire preseason. Carroll said, “We are going to go one week at a time.”
The Seahawks’ first-team ends lately have been Cassius Marsh and Branden Jackson, as the Seahawks await free-agent signee Ziggy Ansah, 30, to join practice after recovering from shoulder surgery. No forecast has been given for Ansah’s return.
The bad news on Collier follows the NFL’s six-game suspension of DT Jarran Reed, who was alleged to have assaulted a girlfriend in his home 27 months ago.
He had a career-high 10.5 sacks last season. The Seahawks traded their 2018 sack leader, Frank Clark (13), to Kansas City to get the first-round pick that turned into Collier.
Carroll didn’t offer specifics about the pursuit of D-line help other than to say, “We go all the way to the 53 (player-deadline cutdown to set the roster), and keep on going . . . So we’re looking.”
Speaking of Reed, he and OL Ethan Pocic were ejected from practice for fighting after an 11-on-11 scrimmage play. They both threw punches, and Carroll kicked them out of practice, with Pocic heading to the locker room.
Each training camp usually has a few such dust-ups, but Carroll is not among those coaches who have some tolerance for fights as a natural-order type of thing.
“It’s really important for us to recognize how devastating that can be in a game when you’ve only got so many guys,’’ Carroll said. “If you lose one position, it can change the whole complexion of the game for you. we cannot resort to that at any time.’’
7 Comments
Keep ’em coming Art – so nice to read about teams (Hawks & Huskies) that are WINNERS and are well managed.
As if you don’t enjoy cudgeling the Mariners . . .
Ok, I confess, it is somewhat a favorite past time, as the M’s have destroyed any relation to the past time they purport participation.
It’s been just 43 years. Give ’em a chance.
You can’t blame it all on the owners.
Woody Woodward is in there somewhere.
That has to be a painful and disappointing injury for L.J. Those high ankle sprains understate the severity by calling it a “sprain”. Wishes for a speedy recovery. On the other story, must have been fun trying to break up the fight between those two massive gentleman, you could get destroyed in the crossfire just by mistake.
Fortunately, intervention was by equally massive gentlemen. Carroll wisely kept distance.