With caution as the clear word this time of the year, the Detroit Lions are not concerned about injuries to David Montgomery and Malcolm Rodriguez.
In parallel to how players performs at OTAs, injuries to notable players become cause of some concern. During last week's first OTAs, injuries took running back David Montgomery and linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez off the practice field. And naturally, given their names and place on the team, each garnered a bit of noteworthiness.
Via SI.com, Lions head coach Dan Campbell said 10 or 12 players would sit out of Thursday's OTA session open to the media. Montgomery and Rodriguez among them, and they were the first mention(s) in Campbell's injury report.
"Neither one of them are gonna practice (Thursday) but it's nothing serious," Campbell said. "I got a feeling somebody else may tweak something out there today and we do have a number of guys that we're gonna sit just to be smart. We're probably gonna have 10, 12 guys out. It's just preventative, let's just be smart. There again, it's not about the physical right now, it's more about the mental and making sure that we can get guys healthy for training camp in July.""
Caution is the only word when it comes to OTA injuries, for the Detroit Lions or any other team
As Campbell said, OTAs in May/June are about mental reps as much as anything. And they're even more important than physical reps, when pads can't be worn right now anyway.
Campbell is not going to say much of anything about any injury right now, and he doesn't have to give details. So we have to trust what he says about, at least in regard to Montgomery and Rodriguez as the headliners here, about injuries not being serious.
But injuries that aren't serious can become more if caution isn't taken, and before training camp caution is the only mode NFL teams should profess in regard to injuries.