At the rate the Cowboys were losing linebackers, it’s no wonder they want to be careful with Sean Lee.
According to Todd Archer of ESPNDallas.com, they’re holding him out of 7-on-7 drills during camp to give him plenty of time to recover from last year’s torn ACL which knocked him out the entire season.
“As Sean gets older, and Sean’s been through some adversity, I think he’s learning and I’m learning to have the ability to understand what the final product needs to look like and also understand the process to get there,” linebackers coach Matt Eberflus said. “I think he’s understanding of that and I’m doing a better job, I hope, of understanding as well. It’s a work in progress. We’re going to work to the final product.”
It’s a matter of pragmatism as much as anything else. They’ve already lost Keith Rivers to retirement, and Rolando McClain and rookie Mark Nzeocha were placed on the physically unable to perform and non-football injury lists with knee injuries at the start of camp. Of course, McClain is also staring at a four-game suspension when he is well, and then Saturday Justin Jackson tore an ACL.
So for a player as important as Lee, they’re practically putting him in bubble wrap, as he plans to be ready for the Sept. 13 regular season opener.
“He’s made a lot of progress,” coach Jason Garrett said. “We don’t want big setbacks so we’ll kind of incrementally up his work and hopefully he can handle it and we’ll just keep making progress.”
With Lee moving to the weakside linebacker spot, he’s going to have more room to make plays, and making sure he’s ready to make them at the right time.