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Injury
The Undisclosed Injury Has a Name Now, and It’s His Neck
Robbie Ouzts is done for the season. Seattle placed the second-year fullback on injured reserve Tuesday, and because that happened before the roster gets cut down, there is no coming back from it this year. ESPN’s Brady Henderson reported the injury is to his neck.
For two weeks nobody in the building would say what was wrong. Macdonald kept promising an update sooner than later. Now we have it, and it lands harder than a fullback story usually does: Ouzts was also inactive for the NFC Championship Game and for Super Bowl LX with a neck issue. Two neck problems in seven months is not a depth-chart inconvenience.
He was a fifth-round pick out of Alabama who converted from tight end after Seattle drafted him, played 12 regular-season games as a rookie with a pair of starts, and was one of the names people expected to get more work in Brian Fleury’s motion-heavy offense. Instead the room is down to Brady Russell, another converted tight end, and Brock Lampe, who has been here about a week.
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Offensive snaps Ouzts played as a rookie, per Seattle Sports, in a scheme that actually wants a fullback on the field.
Seattle filled the roster spot with linebacker Aaron Smith, undrafted out of South Carolina State last year and a Jets practice squad guy in 2025. That’s the transaction. The transaction is the least interesting part of this. Root for the kid’s neck.
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Roster
Seattle Worked Out Terrion Arnold, and HBO Had a Camera in the Room
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Detroit released Arnold, its 2024 first-round pick, in late June, less than a week after he was arrested in Tampa on felony charges connected to a robbery and kidnapping in February. He is out on bail and permitted to travel domestically for work, which is why he is allowed to be standing in an NFL facility at all.
Macdonald’s language was carefully mapped: “It’s enough right now that we had him in for a great visit, a great tryout,” plus an acknowledgment of the other things surrounding it and a promise the team will “do our due diligence.” Seattle has not signed him.
He has also worked out for Houston and had a tryout lined up with New Orleans, per NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo. So a lot of front offices are running the same math on the same 23-year-old. Ours just did it with a film crew standing there.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Nick Emmanwori passed his physical Tuesday, a month after ankle surgery. He opened camp on a scooter, upgraded to a cane, and is now walking around unassisted. The Week 1 answer everyone’s been dancing around just got a lot less theoretical. Seahawks.com
Derick Hall got too close to Sam Darnold twice in one practice and Macdonald threw him off the field for it, ending the argument with “it turns out I’m running the f—ing practice.” Two episodes, two Hall incidents. HBO is getting its money’s worth. SI
Cooper Kupp beat Devon Witherspoon on two straight reps in one-on-ones, then walked him through what he’d been reading in coverage. Getting cooked and then tutored by the same guy inside sixty seconds is a specific kind of afternoon. Seattle Sports
Episode two also aired a team competition where players hold two sledgehammers at full extension until somebody’s arms drop. That’s it. That’s the whole event. Somewhere Pete Carroll is nodding approvingly at a television he refused to be on. Yahoo Sports
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Myles Garrett sat out the Cowboys joint practice Tuesday, his second straight day down with a knee issue and his sixth missed day of camp. Sean McVay put him at 85 percent and said there is nothing to be concerned about, which is exactly what you say about a defensive player of the year you mortgaged the future for. Percentages are what teams give you when they don’t want to give you a date.
NINERS
San Francisco hosted Tennessee for a joint practice and needed exactly one 11-on-11 snap to start a brawl, after Renardo Green threw a Titans receiver to the ground near the sideline and both benches emptied. Several more scuffles followed. Up here, our head coach ejected a guy for brushing his own quarterback. Different buildings, different ideas about what practice is for.
CARDINALS
Arizona’s over/under is 3.5 wins, and general manager Monti Ossenfort was asked whether the playoffs are the goal anyway. “Absolutely. Our goal is to win,” he said, adding that he thinks he’s built a roster that will be highly competitive. Every GM in America says this in August. Not every GM in America says it while the betting market prices his team below four wins.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
Seattle used the 15th overall pick in the 2012 draft on a West Virginia edge rusher who then led every rookie in the NFL with 8.0 sacks. Who is he?
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Bruce Irvin. He moved to strongside linebacker the very next season and started 37 games over the following four years for a defense that became the first in the Super Bowl era to lead the league in scoring defense four straight seasons.
Got a Question? Ask It.
The mailbag runs on reader questions, and the good ones tend to arrive at 11 p.m. from someone who has clearly been thinking about the roster instead of sleeping. Send yours. Sign it with a name and a neighborhood.
Four days until somebody in a star helmet shows up at Lumen. Try to enjoy the wait. — The Rooster