Tag: injury history

Potential worries about the Detroit Lions: Defensive newcomers with injury histories

The Lions are trying to fill some big holes on defense with veterans who have some lengthy injury histories before coming to Detroit

Up next in the series of potential worries about the 2024 Detroit Lions is a more abstract concept. That’s because this one could turn out to be nothing at all, and that would be a great best-case scenario.

Potential worries about the 2024 Detroit Lions: Kicking

Potential worries about the 2024 Detroit Lions: The safety spot

This one deals with the rather lengthy injury histories of a couple of critical defensive additions. In fact, both are coming off season-ending injuries that ruined their final seasons with their prior teams.

That would be EDGE Marcus Davenport and DT DJ Reader. Each represents a quite significant upgrade over the player(s) he is replacing in the Lions lineup, but it requires that they’re both healthy and stay that way. And staying on the field has been a challenge for both, especially Davenport.

The 2018 first-round pick by the Saints (while Dan Campbell and Aaron Glenn were on the coaching staff) has missed at least three games due to injury in every season but one, the 2022 campaign. That was his last year in New Orleans. Last year in Minnesota, Davenport lasted just four games before being lost for the season with a high ankle sprain.

Going back to his rookie OTAs, Davenport has missed time with:

  • Broken thumb
  • Broken big toe
  • Lisfranc surgery
  • Concussion
  • Sprained shoulder
  • Sprained ankle
  • High ankle sprain

That’s a lengthy list for a guy who often relies on out-athleting the opponent to get to the quarterback. A healthy Davenport is exactly what this Lions defense wants aligned opposite Aidan Hutchinson, with length, power, speed, initial quickness and positional discipline. He’s been healthy this summer and looked great in team drills. Can that last?

We still haven’t seen Reader in a full-contact practice. The 30-year-old was just activated after recovering from a torn quadriceps. It’s the second time Reader has torn his quad, the prior one coming in 2020, his first year with the Bengals. Three of his first four seasons in the NFL, all with the Houston Texans, featured stints on I.R. for various injuries.

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When he’s been on the field, Reader has earned the respect as one of the very best nose tackles in the league. Like Davenport, he’s physically a perfect fit for Glenn’s defense–if he’s healthy.

The Lions need them, to be blunt. The backup options, while not awful, just don’t provide the same level of impact or reliability. In the case of Davenport, his two primary backups, Josh Paschal and James Houston, each have some unfortunate injury histories of their own.

Cornerback Carlton Davis has also been in the training room a lot during his six seasons in Tampa Bay. He’s never played in more than 14 games in any season, including missing five in 2023 with various injuries (concussion, groin, toe). Davis also missed some training camp time, though he returned looking just fine. Detroit has better depth at Davis’ outside cornerback spot, but he’s the top dog and a veteran leader who makes players around him better.

Those are the three biggest veteran additions to the Lions defense. All are being counted upon to help Detroit’s D rise up the rankings and become a force of its own. If the Lions can get 15 games each out of Reader, Davenport and Davis, that’s fantastic. Alas, it might be unrealistic given their histories.

‘I like this too much:’ Cowboys’ Sean Lee to play now, talk coaching later

Coach Mike McCarthy is already talking about the 11-year veteran as a coaching candidate, but Sean Lee has a season to finish as linebacker.

Sean Lee’s entire professional football past has been with the Dallas Cowboys. It’s been widely suggested that whatever comes after his days on the field are over will keep him on the team’s sideline. Lee’s past as a player and his assumed future as a coach may be about to intersect.

The 34-year-old linebacker is nearing the end of a one-year deal he signed back in March. He wasn’t a lock to return, but chose to stay with the team that drafted him in 2010’s second round, in large part to help mentor the rising duo of Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch.

He spent a chunk of 2020 injured, as he has during most of his 11 seasons with the Cowboys. His mentoring came from the sidelines and in team meeting rooms as he dealt with a sports hernia. Since recovering from surgery in which his abdominal muscles had to be reattached to his pelvis, Lee has helped out on the field, too. He’s been in on just 10 tackles in seven games, but he’s provided a veteran presence on a defense that’s needed it often this season.

Widely considered one of the smartest players to suit up in recent memory, the man they call ‘The General’ has been seen by most as a prime coaching candidate whenever he decides he’s done playing. Many have even likened him to a coordinator who just happens to be on the field for his uncanny ability to read Xs and Os.

His current head coach seems willing to help him complete the transition from cleats to clipboard.

Mike McCarthy effectively hinted that there might well be a place for the two-time Pro Bowler on his defensive staff in Dallas. He and Lee are both Pittsburgh natives; the former says he believes the latter would be a “great” coach when the time comes.

And that time may be coming soon.

Mickey Spagnola from the team website dropped this nugget in this week’s column:

“Maybe this was just meant to be. But with veteran linebacker Sean Lee on an expiring one-year contract and turning 35 before the start of next season, this could very well be his final Cowboys home game on Sunday. And he could very well be starting with Leighton Vander Esch more than likely missing the game with a high ankle sprain. And if Lee does, certainly head coach Mike McCarthy fittingly would name him a captain and send him out for the coin toss.”

There is a certain poetic perfection to the story ending that way.

But Lee is too locked in on his present role as a player to think yet about his potential future as a coach.

“I really don’t think about it,” Lee told reporters this week, “just because the game is so tough, and I’ve always tried to prepare a certain way to where your focus is purely on your opponent, on how to make plays on the field, and almost trying to be obsessed with that: going over it, rehearsing it constantly throughout the week so that when you get into the game, you feel so comfortable. So for me, I’m just trying to go through the process of preparing to win another game, obviously against a great opponent, a rival. Every game I’ve played in, I feel blessed to have the opportunity. Being injured, being out before, especially during this tough season, having an opportunity to play is all I focus on because of how lucky I am.”

Lucky, Sean Lee says.

From the outside looking in, it seems the only luck Lee’s had was bad luck. He’s missed 42 games in his career and made it through a full season just once. But right now, he says he is ready for whatever workload the team requires.

“This is as good as I’ve felt,” according to the All-Pro. “I feel good. I’ve gotten better every single week since I’ve gotten back, physically. Each week, I’ve been able to have more reps in practice, been able to play a little bit more in different games, and I feel really good.”

It’s times just like this, when he is feeling good and healthy and strong, that keeps him returning, repeatedly pushing back at thoughts of retirement. He came close after the 2019 season, he says.

“You kind of go back and forth on things at times as you get older. But the problem is, any time I go on the field and I get to play, and you make a couple plays, you’re like, ‘Well, I like this too much.’ That is my problem; I love this game too much. I love this organization a lot, and I love playing… I’m addicted to playing the game.”

But the more Lee talks about his other role with the Cowboys, the one where he’s a mentor, a veteran leader, an on-the-field coordinator, a quasi-coach, the guy teaching how to tackle instead of making the tackle- The General– the more he visibly lets himself get just as juiced up about the possibility of leading this team to success in a way that doesn’t require ice baths afterward.

It is, after all, why he’s been such a hands-on guy even when dealing with his own injuries.

He’s always been this way. While at Penn State, an ACL injury forced Lee to take a medical redshirt for the 2008 season. His teammates elected him a team captain anyway, and he spent his rehab acting as an undergrad assistant coach for every practice and wearing a headset on the sideline for every game that year.

“Part of why I’ve tried to help is because I’ve been out so much,” Lee admitted. “And you don’t feel like you’re part of the team when you’re not helping. So if I can help in any way, if I can help a young guy make a play in a game or help him see things that can help him play a little faster, that was always my way of still being involved with the team. In some ways, I like that as much as making a play myself, especially when you see a young guy like Leighton and some of our young linebackers who want to play well, who work so hard. You want to do that any way that you can.”

It seems perhaps inevitable that Sean Lee will one day be a defensive coach for the Dallas Cowboys.

It feels like that day may be coming soon.

But The General will have two more days- at least- on the field first.

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Cowboys’ Amari Cooper feels good, ready for ‘exciting’ battle with Jalen Ramsey

The Cowboys WR has been held out of several practices recently, but says he’s ready for Sunday’s season opener at Los Angeles.

Anticipation and expectations are through the roof for the Cowboys wide receiving corps as the 2020 season begins. Jerry Jones has called the triumvirate of Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, and CeeDee Lamb the most talented threesome of pass-catchers the club has ever had under his tenure as team owner.

But as quarterback Dak Prescott looks to build on career-best numbers in 2019 and Cowboys fans dream of Team Fortyburger shorting out scoreboards for the next 17 weeks (and hopefully longer), the understated WR1 of the bunch kept things matter-of-fact, as always.

“I like what we’re doing on offense,” Cooper said plainly on Thursday.

The four-time Pro Bowler may have been reluctant to compare this season’s offense to last season’s iteration, but one thing Cooper hopes is different is his health. The Alabama alum played through something last year. Though he made it on the field in all 16 games and racked up over 1,100 yards, Cooper had all kinds of lower body ailments listed next to his name at various points in 2019: heel bruise, plantar fasciitis, twisted ankle, thigh bruise.

It was clear to nearly everyone that there were times when Cooper was less than 100%. So it was with no small amount of breath-holding that fans learned Cooper had been held out of most team work over the past two weeks, working with trainers and using resistance bands on the sideline.

But the former Raider says he’ll be ready come Sunday’s season opener in Los Angeles.

“I feel good,” Cooper said after Thursday’s practice, per the team website. “I’ve been able to become a full participant the last couple of practices and I’ve been able to do everything, so I feel really good going into the game.”

He says this latest hamstring issue comes with the job description.

“It’s not frustrating at all; it’s football,” the 26-year-old said. “When you’ve been playing football as long as I have, you realize that it’s all a part of the game. It’s not about not getting hurt or not getting nicked. It’s about how you deal with them, come back from them, or play through it.”

In Week 1, Cooper’s hamstring (both of them, actually) will be tested against Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey. The three-time Pro Bowler is fresh off signing a five-year contract extension worth $105 million, the largest ever at the position.

Cooper says he’s looking forward to making Ramsey earn his paycheck on Sunday night.

“It’s always exciting to go against a top corner or one considered to be one of the best in the league. I think he’s a real good player. He has all the intangible assets that you would want in a cornerback: fast, long, can cover, has good ball skills. It’s always a challenge, but exciting at the same time.”

Cooper has a newly-signed contract of his own. He and the Cowboys agreed on a five-year deal in March, but he says he doesn’t feel any added pressure now that he’s a $100 million man.

“I just go out there and play my game,” Cooper explained. “The reason that I feel that I was extended was because I’ve just been playing the way that Amari Cooper plays. So if that was the reason I was extended, then it’s nothing for me to just go out there and continue playing the way that I play.

“I try to epitomize the wide receiver position, and I think, at it’s core, it’s just getting open, getting separation, making the throw easier for the quarterback. And that’s what I try to do with every route that I run. I try to create as much separation as I possibly can.”

Some of that separation, at least in practice, has been trickier than in years past. That’s because the team’s second-round draft pick, Trevon Diggs, has been honing his coverage skills against Cooper.

And Cooper has been impressed.

“He looks real good. Real impressive rookie, especially for a cornerback. I think that’s one of the hardest positions to transition to when you come from college to the NFL. As a cornerback in college, you can be a great player and not necessarily have all the tools needed to be a good NFL corner. But from what he’s been showing in practice, he made that transition look real easy, and he’s been a tough matchup for us at receiver.”

Cooper says the rookie DB clearly has some of the same pass-catching DNA as his brother Stefon, wide receiver for the Bills.

“I think a lot of times when a cornerback has some type of ball skills, they just don’t inherit those ball skills. You practice with the ball a lot, and that usually comes from playing offense. I can tell you he’s played some receiver growing up, and I think it does help him, because he’s able to recognize routes, and he’s able to feel like when somebody is going to break in and somebody is going to break out, because he’s played the position. It’s going to help him a lot, it really is.”

Cooper may be forecasting big things for Diggs, but when asked about the prognosis of the Cooper/Gallup/Lamb triple threat, he kept any predictions to himself.

“I think we have a lot of potential. The stuff we’ve been putting on tape in practice is impressive. Just excited about actually going out and putting it on tape in games and seeing that potential come to life.”

Just last month, Cooper talked about the potential for all three receivers to top 1,000 yards in 2020.

For the team’s resident chess champ, Sunday will mark the first moves toward that endgame.

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Sean Lee’s most recent injury traces back to Cowboys S&C phase

The veteran linebacker has been working on the side with trainers after an unspecified injury earlier in the offseason, says Mike McCarthy.

While the first week of Cowboys training camp has already included highlight grabs by rookie CeeDee Lamb, booming kicks from Greg Zuerlein, the re-emergence of Aldon Smith, and the premature loss of Gerald McCoy, some notable longtime Dallas stars have stayed almost completely of the radar thus far.

Linebacker Sean Lee is back for his eleventh season with the team, but he hasn’t technically been with the team for the real on-the-field sessions. The two-time Pro Bowler has been working off to the side, for reasons that were unclear until Friday’s revelation from head coach Mike McCarthy.

Lee is battling an injury.

(Insert a here-we-go-again eye roll here, Cowboys fans. Go ahead. Get it out of the way.)

The nature of the injury is unspecified; it apparently happened during the strength and conditioning phase of the offseason and has led the team to take a cautious approach with Lee as the contact portion of training camp has gotten underway.

But, according to McCarthy, Lee continues to put in the work necessary for him to be ready to go as soon as possible.

“The one thing about Sean, you know, he’s here all day every day,” McCarthy told the media before Friday’s practice session. “He’s totally on top of everything that we’re asking him to do: clear understanding of the defense and things like that. But injuries happen. That’s part of the game; you go through it each and every year, whether it’s a young player or a veteran. Until they get healthy, it’s the most important thing: you don’t want this to be a reoccurring issue.”

Lee has earned a reputation as being often-injured throughout his NFL career. After appearing in 29 of 32 games over his first two seasons, the Penn State alum missed 10 games in 2012 and another five the following year before an offseason ACL tear scratched him from the entire 2014 campaign.

Upon his return, Lee logged stats in 14, 15, and 11 games in the next three seasons, respectively. A lingering hamstring issue limited the former second-round draft pick to just seven contests in 2018, but he bounced back to play all of 2019 in a reduced role.

Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch have quickly become one of the league’s most feared linebacking duos, with Justin March and Joe Thomas contributing nicely in spot situations. Second-year man Luke Gifford flashed tons of promise before getting hurt last preseason; he’s healthy now. And UDFA rookie Francis Bernard has turned heads early this camp.

Lee simply isn’t asked to carry as much weight with this LB corps as he had to early in his career. An exceptional student of the game and widely considered to be a coaching candidate once he hangs up cleats, he’s one of those players who doesn’t need the physical punishment of practice to be ready to play. It sounds as if he’s staying sharp, though, and McCarthy didn’t seem terribly concerned about his long-term availability.

So while the young guys compete for roster spots and duke it out for the attention of the coaching staff and Twitterverse, Cowboys fans would likely be just fine with Lee staying off to the side until the season starts.

And rolling him in a layer or two of bubble wrap might not be the worst idea ever.

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Kyrie Irving’s latest injury should worry the Nets

The injuries are adding up for Kyrie.

It’s officially on to next season for the Brooklyn Nets. The shoulder that has been ailing Kyrie Irving all season long is officially sidelining him until next year with him opting to have surgery on it.

It’s a surgery Irving should’ve had a long time ago, but waited until the very last moment to actually go through with. Now, he’s out for the season because of that.

This is all part of a pattern with Irving. In each of the last three seasons, Irving has been plagued by injuries that have kept him out for different periods of time.

This season has obviously been worse than others — he’ll only play 20 games this year. But these injuries aren’t anything new. They’ve been piling up since his Freshman year at Duke.

There are so many injuries there  – and they vary so much – that it’s easy to write many of them off as “freak” injuries or bad luck. But after a certain point, this becomes more than luck.

Kyrie Irving is an injury-prone player. As he’s progressed in his career, the wear and tear has gotten worse and worse and now, with his shoulder, the bubble has finally burst.

This is something that the Nets should be worried about.  By season’s end, Irving will be 28 years old in year one of a four year commitment to the Nets.  By the time that deal is over, he’ll be 32. He’s already committed to his first major surgery with the Nets.

We’ve seen this story before. The same things have happened with Dwyane Wade and Allen Iverson. Other guards who weren’t scared to drive into the lane amongst the trees and try and finish over the top. As entertaining and amazing as they were, they also cut their primes short with major injuries to different points of their bodies.

That’s a scary situation for the Nets to be in. Not only do they have an injury-prone guard who could slow down at any moment, but they also have the league’s former best player coming back from an Achilles injury – one that has been historically difficult to come back from – at 31 years old. I’m not going to be the guy who doubts Kevin Durant here, but it’s easy to do so when you look at conventional wisdom.

The Nets went from “best Summer ever” vibes to potentially being in a situation that might be tough to get out of in a year or two so quickly. Best case scenario is that Durant comes back looking like his old self and Irving’s shoulder ends up being nothing.

Worst case? Man, things could get ugly. For the Nets, let’s hope they don’t.

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