In the Seattle Seahawks last practice before the Super Bowl Friday, a freak Kam Chancellor injury threw the Seattle players and faithful into a moment of panic. A knee injury at the goal line looked like it would put one of the top two defenders on the would-be Super Bowl repeat champions out of the lineup. As of late Saturday, that fear had apparently been put to rest.
The Kam Chancellor injury at first looked bad. The injury came near the end of Friday’s practice, when Chancellor fell down near the goal line and injured his left knee. The pain was bad enough that the strong safety needed to be helped up, had his knee wrapped and missed the rest of practice.
Chancellor‘s Super Bowl status was listed as probable and he left the field with no limp. However, seeing one of the Seahawks’ top two defenders (with Richard Sherman, shown above) potentially down for the count against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots had The 12th Man worried.
On Saturday’s walk-through practice, the Seahawks coaching staff and players were relieved to see virtually no signs of the Kam Chancellor injury that had them so worried less than 24 hours earlier.
Reports from the Super Bowl said Chancellor did not appear to be favoring his leg Saturday. Because of that performance, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said he expects Seattle’s strong safety to be just fine for the Super Bowl.
“He looked pretty good today,” Carroll said. “We will make sure we test him in pregame, but he remarkably looked great today, and so that’s all we have to go on.”
The Seattle Seahawks defense will be surprisingly banged-up as they play the Patriots in the Super Bowl. In addition to Chancellor’s knee issues, free safety Earl Thomas is listed as “probable” after separating his shoulder in the NFC Championship Game, and cornerback Richard Sherman will be playing two weeks after suffering a hyperextended elbow in that same game that had a noticeable impact on his game against the Packers.
According to reports, however, every player on the Seahawks’ 53-man roster participated in the team’s Super Bowl practices. So did the team’s 10 practice squad players.