Why 3 offseason injuries to linebackers could be crushing

Back in April when teams were holding pre-draft workouts with top prospects, Jadeveon Clowney -- the top prospect -- did something surprising: he refused. He wouldn’t go through the full set of position drills, rightfully thinking that between his Pro Day, the Scouting Combine, and his three years of college game tape, teams had plenty to work with.

It was a move that angered the curmudgeon union leaders. But at the time Clowney was unemployed and therefore unpaid, and as we see repeatedly each spring, football players can rip pretty important muscles any time they’re on a football field. Even when they’re not wearing pads, and even during non-contact drills.

Last spring the most notable tears came within the bodies of Michael Crabtree and Melvin Ingram, keeping both out for much of the regular season. This year lady luck seems to be aiming all of her darkness at one position: middle linebacker.

It’s a troubling position to have vacated, because while there’s often sufficient depth at defensive end and in the secondary around today’s passing-focused NFL, a top tier linebacker has a unique set of skills. He has the strength and field sense to plug running lanes, and also the versatility to drop back in coverage. He’s Luke Kuechly, or thereabouts, and he’s a vital anchor.

That aptly describes Sean Lee, the first major victim of muscle ripping sorcery this offseason, continuing his brutal luck. In 2013 Lee missed five games with hamstring and neck problems. Yet because of his Herculean play and the lack of anything around him, Lee still led the Cowboys in interceptions (four), tackles (99), and defensive stops (42) despite his missed time. Now that presence is gone, and a defense that gave up a league worst 415.3 total yards per game in 2013 is also without DeMarcus Ware Jason Hatcher.

The Falcons’ Sean Weatherspoon is also both a linebacker anchor, and a victim of the position’s injury depression. The death blow to his 2014 season came in an even more freakish manner: during a simple jog. Weatherspoon was in the final stages of rehabbing another injury -- a knee problem -- last week when he tore his Achilles.

It was a sadly familiar ending for the first-round pick who is entering a contract year, as Weatherspoon has played all 16 games of a season just once in 2010. That year provided the annual hope which is routinely erased. In his second season Weatherspoon recorded 115 tackles with four sacks and eight passes defensed.

An already weak Falcons defense that gave up 6.1 yards per play (29th) and 379.4 total yards per game (27th) in 2013 will once again be forced to move rookies up the depth chart before they’re ready (fourth rounder Prince Shembo will likely see the most snaps to replace Weatherspoon). None of the linebackers who started for the Falcons in the 2012 NFC Championship game are still on the roster.

Lastly and most recently, there’s the tale of Jon Beason, one with equal doses of fear and cautious optimism. Beason went down during a Giants workout last week, and given his creaky injury history that saw him make just five starts between 2011 and 2012 because of two potentially career-altering problems (an Achilles tear, and microfracture surgery) a lot of breath was held.

Then there was mostly good news, though a faint Price Is Right loser horn played in the distance: Beason will be out for three months with a torn foot ligament and broken bone. That puts the Giants’ season opener in jeopardy, and a worst case scenario has him out until Week 5. It could have been so much worse, but even the possibility of Beason missing a quarter of the season isn’t fun.

Of the six times when the Giants gave up more than 30 points this past season, four of them came before Beason was brought in from Carolina. Despite that girth of scoring allowed over the first four weeks before Beason’s arrival (an average of 35.5 points per game), the Giants still finished a fine eighth overall in total yards allowed, largely due to their new versatile linebacker.

Like Weatherspoon and Lee, Beason is a dynamic presence. Now already in June two of those three are lost for 2014, and Beason could miss a significant chunk of the year after his third major injury over the past four seasons.

A safe, pleasant, and injury-free environment doesn’t exist in football. Not even in “non-contact drills”.