McDowell now attending practices!

[MD5eahawks]

Thanks for the update Seymour.

 

[Chukarhawk]

zero chance hes back this year

 

[Seymour]

zero chance hes back this year

Based on what?

Nobody with inside knowledge of the situation has even hinted at that.

 

[Seymour]

Considering the extremity of the reports, many figured McDowell would miss probably the full season at a minimum.

However Friday Pete Carroll told reporters McDowell still has a chance to play this year. Perhaps more newsworthy, Carroll more specifically pronounced McDowell’s problem, calling it “a really bad concussion” according to the Seattle Times’s Bob Condotta.

https://www.fieldgulls.com/2017/10/...-2017-injury-update-concussion-defensive-line

 

[kobebryant]

I could be wrong, and having been a skinny basketball player most of my life I have zero idea about the trenches in football, but I would imagine that on the dline you may be less susceptible to the massive head traumas that a WR,RB,S,LBer have to worry about but may be more susceptible to repeated sub-concussive jarrings of the brain that take their toll over time.

Whatever the outcome, I hope decisions are made with his long term health of paramount concern.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

good to hear, even though there's "no chance" he plays :irishdrinkers:

We'll see about that.......

 

[Attyla the Hawk]

zero chance hes back this year

Based on what?

Nobody with inside knowledge of the situation has even hinted at that.

Agreed. We don't have any idea what they are planning to do with him.

Going forward, the timeline is thus:

Between weeks 6 and 11 (officially the day after week six and the day after week 11), Seattle may allow McDowell to return to practice. At this point, he's not active and doesn't count against the roster.

Day after week 6 was our bye week.
Day after the Atlanta game is the 11th week

In this time three things can happen.

1. Does he practice?

Yes: Once he returns to practice, Seattle gets a 3 week roster exemption where he can practice and be further evaluated.
No: If he doesn't practice by the day after Atlanta, he has to be released or put on IR.

2. Seattle puts him on IR before the 11th week (highly unlikely).

My guess is, Seattle will push the practice threshold to the very last day (after Atlanta). Based on the fact that he's a rookie who missed all of the training camp and the meetings. He's so far behind right now.


After he begins practicing, Seattle gets a 3 week roster exemption. This means he can practice with the team and they don't have to do anything with him until after the Jacksonville game.

We absolutely won't know how the team proceeds with this. Obviously, there is a medical aspect to this that nobody outside the organization is privy to.

Conceding that, there are two competing motivations that could factor here:

1. Not activating him means his contract rolls over to next year. He doesn't accrue a season. In a min/max perspective this would seem a no brainer.

2. If Seattle is in a championship push, and McDowell demonstrates that he can be useful in the rotation -- who really cares if you get an extra year on the rookie deal. Adding a quality player deep in a championship run is worth way more than rolling the contract over.

So it's not a given that he doesn't play. If he can help this year, we'll sacrifice a year on the rookie deal. The degree he can help that's the gray unknown to us. We won't know that. But we should agree that there is a threshold whereby his potential production would trump the accrued season benefit.

If I had to guess, we're going to push the practice threshold to the day after Atlanta. We may not be in a hurry to activate him either. Injuries will factor into that decision. If he does start practicing, I would not assume that's a positive sign he'll play. We expect him to practice the 3 weeks at this point. If he doesn't, I think that is an ominous scenario.

I fully expect we won't know if he's playing until the day after Jacksonville where the team has a hard deadline.
-

 

[Seymour]

Excellent post Attyla.

Thank you for the thorough timeline of what we may need to watch for. :2thumbs:

 

[mikeak]

Great post Attyla the only thing I would think is different than normal though is that this is a head injury

Someone hurting a little can get medical clearance but still held back and then activated within the time period so that you buy yourself 3 extra weeks

Concussion - you don't activate him unless fully cleared. Doesn't matter what the timelines are. You can hold him back but not do it early.......

 

[A-Dog]

I mean, the elephant in the room here is... does McDowell have brain damage as a result of his accident. I don't mean like in the concussion sense where it takes a long time to get back to normal, I mean like permanent, significant, irreversible damage.

At least that's the first thing I thought when the whole thing was shrouded in secrecy.

Hopefully this is not the case, and maybe they just don't know yet, but I have to say I am curious.

 

[Osprey]

I could be wrong, and having been a skinny basketball player most of my life I have zero idea about the trenches in football, but I would imagine that on the dline you may be less susceptible to the massive head traumas that a WR,RB,S,LBer have to worry about but may be more susceptible to repeated sub-concussive jarrings of the brain that take their toll over time.

Whatever the outcome, I hope decisions are made with his long term health of paramount concern.

There's a school of thought that cumulative, sub-concussive impacts are equally dangerous. I'd imagine that 300# men slamming into each other falls into this category.
https://concussionfoundation.org/CTE-resources/subconcussive-impacts

 

[kidhawk]

Pete said in his press conference today that it doesn't look like Malik will be able to play this season. Didn't go into further detail. his quote was "there isn't any progress being made in that direction". Sounds like he's basically done for the year and he wouldn't update the long term update, so we'll probably have to wait and see what happens during the off season.

 

[hawkfan68]

It doesn't make sense to add him this late in the season. The DL is fine without him for now.

 

[mikeak]

It doesn't make sense to add him this late in the season. The DL is fine without him for now.

This was injury related. There is a huge upside for McDowell to in fact get activated this year as otherwise this year is deemed null and void and he gets "extended" another year as his original contract is still due in full.

So with that said IF the medical staff and doctors had cleared him they would have been forced to activate him. He would absolutely not allow doctors to say he is fine then not be active by the team.

Now was the team doctor being overly conservative etc - you can always speculate but from the beginning it has sounded like he was never coming back this year

 

[jammerhawk]

McDowell cost himself an extra year of his rookie contract as his contract will toll if he isn’t activated from NFI. I
Imagine his agent has already given him this news.

Too bad we won’t get to see him this season b/c the early reports from the early OTAs seemed to
Indicate he was a superior athlete.

 

[kidhawk]

It doesn't make sense to add him this late in the season. The DL is fine without him for now.

This was injury related. There is a huge upside for McDowell to in fact get activated this year as otherwise this year is deemed null and void and he gets "extended" another year as his original contract is still due in full.

So with that said IF the medical staff and doctors had cleared him they would have been forced to activate him. He would absolutely not allow doctors to say he is fine then not be active by the team.

Now was the team doctor being overly conservative etc - you can always speculate but from the beginning it has sounded like he was never coming back this year

I've never heard of a rule saying a team must bring a player off the pup or IR list when healthy enough to play. I've always believed it to be a team option. Now, he could have a case for having his first year on his contract count if he can claim he was healthy enough for the roster, but that's another story altogether and would be worked out between the team and his agent.

 

[Bigpumpkin]

Based on the circumstances of his injury......I'll believe my eyes when I see him excel on the field.

 

[MontanaHawk05]

I don't think he ever plays a down in the NFL.

 

[Coug_Hawk08]

I don't think he ever plays a down in the NFL.

Definitely feels like that is where things are headed.

 

[Seymour]

So Pete's words were something to the effect that he just is not making the progress needed? Heard that today. Progress from what exactly after this long? Bad concussion is all I really heard, so what is the progress needed at this point? Is he like seeing double or something? Headaches, depression, balance issues, memory loss?? No idea what progress to look for 6 months+ in.

Ya, I get he's done and they likely don't want him anyway at this point to gain the year, I just want to know what progress they may be looking for this far along with a bad concussion?