One of the biggest stories of this NFL offseason has been the drama surrounding Todd Gurley‘s knee. Gurley clearly wasn’t right down the stretch last season, and C.J. Anderson ended up taking the bulk of the Rams’ running back snaps during their Super Bowl run. Gurley’s health has been clouded in secrecy, with conflicting reports emerging seemingly every week. We’ve heard everything from Gurley having arthritis in his knee and it being degenerative, to him being just fine. Gurley stayed away from the team’s OTAs so he wasn’t available to reporters, but he finally broke his silence this week at minicamp.
Gurley tried to quell any concern at his press conference, saying “I had bigger problems to worry about coming out of college. This is small,” per Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com. Gurley is presumably referring to the ACL tear that he had coming out of Georgia. While it’s nice to hear that Gurley doesn’t sound too concerned, it doesn’t mean we should expect him to be a workhorse in 2019. The Rams raised a lot of eyebrows by drafting Memphis running back Darrell Henderson in the third round back in April, and it’s very likely they’ll take it easy with Gurley early on to keep him fresh for a playoff run.
Here’s more from the NFC West:
- The 49ers have had one of the best kicking situations in the league the last couple of years, as Robbie Gould has been incredibly consistent. San Francisco is hoping for big things this season as Jimmy Garoppolo returns from his torn ACL, and Gould is a big part of their plans. Unfortunately the two sides are in a bit of a contract standoff, as Gould still hasn’t signed his franchise tag and is demanding a trade. Gould may wait until the last minute to show up, and that’s just fine with 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan. “If he doesn’t want to show up until Week 1, it is what it is,” Shanahan said on Tuesday, per Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports. “I’ll take a very good kicker at any time, whether it’s Week 1 or on third down, just one play before we’re going to have to kick.” Gould is set to make $4.971MM under the tag in 2019, but is holding out for a longterm deal. Judging by Shanahan’s comments, it doesn’t sound like the 49ers are going to blink anytime soon.
- Seahawks safety Bradley McDougald is recovering from a recent knee surgery, and now we have more details. McDougald revealed to reporters that he played with a partially torn patellar tendon in his knee from Week 8 on last year, and that he initially tried just rehabbing it before opting for surgery last month, per Brady Henderson of ESPN.com (Twitter link). McDougald also said “for sure” when asked if he’d be on the field at the start of training camp. McDougald, 28, started all 16 games for Seattle last year after being a part-time starter in 2017.
- In case you missed it, Sean McVay fully committed to Jared Goff recently, saying there’s a “zero percent chance” he doesn’t get extended.
Gould has some cojones on him! Sounds like coach Kyle has a bigger pair!
If I’m Gould I show up and miss 4 or 5 of the first FG attempts and 2-3 of the first extra points and then the Niners will see things my way
That would be a punk thing to do. Says a lot about your character.
Gotta wonder if leprechaun was offering this kind of great career advice to Kaepernick….lol.
That’s exactly how you get your ass beat in a locker room.
Fighting solves everything… Violence is the answer to every problem!
Oh calm down, he wasn’t advocating violence, only observing the logical outcome of a kicker messing with the possible future millions of the rest of his teammates…he gon get it!
Although if you’re gonna be that selfish in a team environment, I think it’s justified and warranted to get a beat down
Gould is too much of a character guy to do that. His competitive nature will force him to play out the year on the tag, because he won’t sit for the year. Guy wants to be close to his family instead of living in hotel rooms. Commend him for his actions because of his family.
People move for work every single day. Kind of comes with the territory when you are a professional athlete. There are some pretty nice neighborhoods in the Bay Area that I’m sure his family would be quite happy to live in.