Seahawks rookie L.J. Collier carted off with ankle injury Tuesday

The Seahawks are going to start the 2019 with a depleted defensive line. That unit took another hit on Tuesday when L.J. Collier suffered an ankle injury.

Seattle’s defensive line is not getting any better. After the Seahawks learned last week that defensive tackle Jarran Reed would be suspended for the first six weeks of 2019 due to an domestic assault issue, Seattle saw rookie defensive end L.J. Collier carted off from practice with an ankle injury.

The play where Collier was injured happened near the end of practice when Collier got tangled up with right tackle Germain Ifedi. It was a fluke play and Collier got up and limped off the field next to a trainer. When he got to the sideline, however, the decision was made to bring a cart out and have Collier taken off.

There was no immediate word on how sever Collier’s injury was and that makes sense. Sometimes ankle injuries need a bit of time before determining how injured the area is. Obviously, 12s should hope that Collier will not miss significant time. But NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that Collier is expected to miss the rest of preseason.

This would hurt Collier and the Seahawks overall. Rookies need to work their way into the system and figure out where they need to be and what chances they can take. This is time Collier will not have now. Once he is able to come back, and hopefully that is sooner rather than later, Collier will be behind where he needs to be to work his way into the defensive end rotation.

There is no doubt that without Reed the pass rush is going to suffer. While Collier may not have been expected to come immediately in and get 10 sacks in his first year, he still was valued as a first round choice and needs to learn his way to be better in years two and three. If he cannot get the reps, his learning curve is hurt. Therefore, so is the Seattle defense overall.