Russell Okung Has a High Ankle Sprain

At first, it looked really bad.

Russell Okung, Seattle’s huge investment and first-round pick, was carted off the field and into the locker room last Saturday against the Green Bay Packers.

Some people assumed it was serious – possibly even a season-threatening fracture. Awaiting news, most of Seattle’s fans cringed thinking about Mansfield Wrotto as the team’s new starting left tackle.

Following negative x-ray results and a subsequent MRI, the team announced they expected Okung to miss 2-4 weeks. He would definitely miss the rest of the exhibition season, but could be ready to go for the season opener.

Injuries are never good, but it appeared as if Seattle had dodged a bullet. Nothing serious, and Okung would apparently be ready to go when the games started to matter.

Today, however, the news became slightly worse.

Head coach Pete Carroll revealed that Russell Okung does, in fact, have a high ankle sprain – the same injury that plagued tackle Sean Locklear for more than two months last season.

From Carroll:

"It’s day-to-day, I hate to even think week-to-week. We’re going to just keep looking at him as we’re going through this. In terms of injuries, I don’t think he’s missed a game before or even a practice. So he doesn’t have any experience of having to come back from something so we’ll figure that out as we go.It’s not the worst one we’ve ever seen. It’s kind of a moderate one. So that’s why we’re holding out hope that maybe he can get back quickly, but those can be difficult. We have to see how it goes for him."

Keep your fingers crossed.

Shaun Dolence: dolencesm@gmail.com
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