Injury Update: Seahawks testing work around to get D’Wayne Eskridge on field

While football is set to return Thursday when the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers open the preseason with the Hall of Fame game, fans of the Seattle Seahawks have yet to see the team’s top overall draft pick on the field. A toe injury has kept D’Wayne Eskridge on the sideline since June, and he remains on the Physically Unable to Perform list where he landed after reporting to camp. However, Pete Carroll provided a brief injury update after practice Wednesday.

That is obviously still a limited amount of information regarding the specific injury, however, it does provide some insight. Specifically, the fact that they are working on a shoe that could allow Eskridge to see the field sooner is not great news. If the team’s medical staff and trainers thought the injury would be likely to heal enough on its own through rest and rehab, there would not likely be a need for the use of a workaround to get him back on the field. Alternatively, if the toe issue was something that could be addressed surgically with a recovery timeline that would allow Eskridge to come back quickly, that option would likely have already been taken.

Instead, the team is now left with its top draft pick unable so far to take the field for training camp, with an injury that hasn’t healed through conservative treatment since it first kept Eskridge off the field in June. So, last week Carroll provided a timeline for recovery of a week or two, the situation is now such that Eskridge may need to use some sort of special shoe in order to get back on the field in a timely manner.

In short, this is an injury that has now kept Eskridge off the field for more than seven weeks, and appears as though it could be something that needs to be managed for a good portion of, if not the entirety of, the regular season. Obviously only time will tell and getting Eskridge on the field would be great, this isn’t likely the news that Seattle fans wanted to hear.