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So ends a weird and wacky week for Kamu Grugier-Hill. The Eagles linebacker was placed on injured reserve.
Grugier-Hill made headlines for the wrong reasons last week after lying about a concussion. Head coach Doug Pederson wasn’t happy about it and called him out. Then, the linebacker saw his defensive snaps drop significantly in last week’s game.
On Wednesday, the team announced that Grugier-Hill’s season was done after an MRI revealed a lower lumbar disc herniation in his back. He will have surgery to repair it immediately after consulting with the team’s spine surgeon.
Roster Move: #Eagles have placed LB Kamu Grugier-Hill on Reserve/Injured.
The four-year defensive stalwart and special-teams ace will be a free agent after the season so it’s possible he may have played his last game in Philadelphia. Grugier-Hill was drafted in the sixth round in 2016 and recorded 77 combined tackles, including 11 tackles for loss, two forced fumbles and one interception.
The Eagles promoted defensive tackle Bruce Hector from the practice squad to fill the spot vacated by Grugier-Hill on the 53-man roster.
Falling Out of Favor with Coaching Staff
It was extremely odd to see Kamu Grugier-Hill’s role change so dramatically last week. He went from playing on 50-percent of the snaps to seeing the field for only five total snaps against Washington. Five snaps. That’s it.
The speculation was that the coaching staff had been upset about his decision to deceive them about a concussion in the Miami game, so they benched him. However, the team revealed the linebacker was experiencing discomfort following last week’s game and team doctors advised him to get surgery.
Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz addressed why Grugier-Hill’s snaps were down.
“They ran a lot of big personnel in there and we had a little different lineup in the big personnel, so I think that took a little bit of his snaps away,” Schwartz told reporters. “And then on third down, we were in a lot of dime personnel. Just sort of the way that they had played and then our matchups against it.”
I was just a little chimp… but I kept coming to work, soon I turned into the Gorilla 🦍 #WeStillComing
It was a sentiment echoed by Eagles head coach Doug Pederson one day prior.
“I think, one, the structure of the [Redskins] offense, and then also, T.J. Edwards has been playing well, too, when he’s getting some opportunities,” Pederson told reporters. “So there’s a little bit of that. So keeping all those guys as fresh as possible, plus they are all playing special teams, so just keeping everybody as fresh as we can.”
Grugier-Hill had 22 tackles this season, along with one fumble return and four tackles for loss.
Grugier-Hill Lied about Concussion
Kamu Grugier-Hill knew he had a concussion but he didn’t want to come out of the team’s Week 13 game against Miami.
So Grugier-Hill took matters into his own hands and flat-out lied to the trainers examing him. He told medical personnel that he had hurt his shoulder, but he knew it was a head injury. It happened on the first play from scrimmage.
“I just basically lied to them,” Grugier-Hill told reporters, via NBC Sports Philadelphia. “I thought it would just go away. Just didn’t really say anything about it. It got to the point where I really couldn’t lie to them anymore.”
He came off the field for a few minutes before returning to the game and playing a total of 53 snaps, all of them while suffering from a concussion. Grugier-Hill finally grew tired of the headaches and let the Eagles know what really happened.
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Eagles Place Starting Linebacker on IR after Crazy Week