Our true national crisis - "Russell Wilson's injuries are even worse than we thought"
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It’s clear that Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson isn’t healthy. You can tell that just from watching him.
But Wilson’s injuries are even worse than we knew.
Two new tidbits came out on Thursday. First, on the knee injury, Wilson told Seattle media he wasn’t supposed to play for four weeks. Wilson, with the help of a live-in therapist, never missed a game. He suffered the injury in Week 3.
And now there’s a new injury. Wilson has a pectoral injury he’s dealing with. At least he maintained a sense of humor about his maladies.
“The great thing is my ankle is no longer listed,” Wilson said, according to the Seahawks’ transcripts, referring to a high ankle sprain he suffered in Week 1.
Give Wilson a ton of credit for playing through injuries. The Seahawks made a big gamble in the offseason, and ended up with perhaps the worst backup quarterback situation in recent memory. Their backup was undrafted rookie Trevone Boykin. They were going through preseason with Boykin and Jake Heaps, two quarterbacks who had never even completed a pass in an NFL preseason game. You have to make budget decisions when you have a lot of stars taking up big chunks of the salary cap, and the Seahawks went as cheap as they could at quarterback after Wilson. So Wilson knew he couldn’t miss any time, and he did what he had to do to play each week. Boykin is now the only other quarterback currently on the active roster. Fellow undrafted rookie Joel Stave is on the practice squad.
But in playing through a high ankle sprain and a sprained MCL, injuries that generally take weeks to recover, Wilson might have ensured that he won’t be healthy all year. I’m not sure a doctor would recommend playing NFL football every seven days to heal a sprained knee ligament.
Wilson hasn’t let on much about how injured he has been, but he did finally offer up that his knee has been affecting him.
“I’ve had a pretty relatively serious injury with my knee,” Wilson said. “They told me I wasn’t supposed to play for four weeks, maybe longer. You just overcome it. I’d be lying to you if I said my mobility was 100 percent but I feel really good right now.”
Dealing with a pectoral injury as a quarterback doesn’t seem ideal either. Wilson said he couldn’t remember when he suffered it in last Sunday’s game, but he continued to play through it. He has been limited in practice. He said he doesn’t foresee himself missing Sunday’s game.
“That’s not the plan,” Wilson said, according to the Seahawks’ transcripts. “You know me, I will do everything I can to be ready at the highest level.”
Wilson said the knee is feeling good and the ankle is better. But now he’s dealing with a pec injury and the cycle starts again.
And, unbelievably, the Seahawks’ bad offensive line situation is getting worse. George Fant, who played college basketball at Western Kentucky before going out for football last year and playing some special teams, is slated to start at left tackle this week. The last time he started a football game was in a pee-wee league according to The News Tribune.
“Very unusual transition that he’s made,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said, according The News Tribune.
You could say that.
That’s where we are with Wilson. He says the ankle is good now, the knee might be OK but the pectoral definitely isn’t. And a college basketball player who hasn’t started a football game since the pee-wee level will be protecting him at left tackle on Sunday against the New Orleans Saints. Meanwhile, Wilson probably can’t take any time off because Seattle’s only other two quarterbacks are undrafted rookies.
If Wilson makes it through the season without missing any games, nobody can accuse him of not earning his salary.
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