Last season, the Atlanta Falcons suffered through a miserable season that was full of big injuries. Training camp for this season is still weeks away, but the Falcons haven't kicked the bad injury luck.
Falcons linebacker Sean Weatherspoon, perhaps the team's most talented defensive player, will miss the 2014 season due to an Achilles tendon injury. He suffered the injury during, of all things, a run with the team's medical staff.
“During Sean’s run today with our medical staff, he suffered an injury,” coach Mike Smith said, according to the team's website. “We sent Sean to the doctor for some additional testing and evaluation and unfortunately the results showed that he ruptured his Achilles tendon. Sean had been working extremely hard to get back on the field, but regrettably he will miss the entire 2014 season. He will have a procedure done in the near future and we expect him to make a full recovery.”
That's a tough way to lose one of your top players.
Weatherspoon appeared in just seven games last year, due to foot and knee injuries. Now Weatherspoon, who had 210 tackles combined in 2011 and 2012, will miss the entire 2014 season. We've seen other players make unbelievable recoveries from Achilles injuries. Baltimore's Terrell Suggs returned in a little more than five months from an Achilles injury, and San Francisco's Michael Crabtree made it back in a little more than six months last season. But the team is figuring he's done for the season, at least at this point.
That leaves a pretty big hole for the Falcons, who had a pretty good offseason, adding a lot of talent to the offensive and defensive lines. The loss of Weatherspoon erases a lot of the momentum from the offseason haul and is a bad reminder of an injury-riddled 2013 season for the Falcons.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdowncorner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
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