George Fant tore his ACL last night. Did the Seahawks season go down with him?
Left tackle George Fant tore his ACL in last night’s preseason game versus the Vikings. Who can the Seahawks turn to for his replacement?
We said it on our podcast. All 12s, all football fans say this . It’s the mantra of preseason football. “Please don’t let anybody get hurt.” And here are, with George Fant being carted off the field in an aircast. Fant is done for the season, as reported by the Seattle Times’ Bob Condotta and many others. The question is, did the Seahawks season get carted off with Fant?
The obvious and easy move is to switch Luke Joeckel to left tackle for the season. That’s the best move for now by far. Joeckel has played most of his career at the spot, so it certainly won’t be a tough transition for him. He’s certainly the best option of anyone currently on the roster. As co-expert Lee Vowell wrote earlier, neither Rees Odhiambo nor Ethan Pocic look ready to step into the starting lineup, so sliding Glowinski to left guard makes the most sense.
Luckily, there may be other options. The Seahawks have just over $9 million in cap space. Now just because you have money available doesn’t mean there’s an athlete available. The only players available are guys like Ryan Clady and Michael Oher. Clady is retired, coming off a four year stretch in which he played just 27 games. Oher failed his physical with the Carolina Panthers, and is not at all a good bet to clear concussion protocol. As Oher himself tweeted:
The Brain is a scary thing. You have to be careful with it.
— Michael Oher (@MichaelOher) July 20, 2017
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No one expects starting left tackles to be on the market in preseason. Not unless they’ve missed most of the past four seasons. Or can’t pass the concussion protocol. Or maybe won’t stand for the anthem. This makes it more likely that the Seahawks will be looking at trades.
We’ll look at likely trade targets – or if a trade is even likely – later. For now, I won’t say that the Seahawks season went down with Fant last night. But considering how much the offensive line depended on his success, the road to the playoffs just got a lot rougher.