The Seattle Seahawks got a scare on Wednesday when their star safety Nick Emmanwori was forced to leave the practice field with an ankle injury. The injury raised serious questions about his availability for Super Bowl 60 against the New England Patriots on Sunday. But on Thursday morning, Emmanwori broke his silence on his outlook over the next three days.
Even after an online video showed him badly limping into the Seahawks’ team hotel on Wednesday evening, Emmanwori told ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington that he woke up on Thursday “feeling fine.”
“Not much pain at all,” Darlington wrote on social media, recounting his conversation with the 21-year-old Seahawks rookie. “He feels like he’s played enough football that he doesn’t need full reps in coming days, but this doesn’t seem very serious. It’s not a high ankle sprain like he suffered in Week 1.”
“Nobody really wants to get hurt or banged up during Super Bowl week, or any week at that, so it just kind of caught me off guard. It was just a little scare,” Emmanwori said at a media appearance on Thursday, per Gregg Bell of the Seattle News-Tribune. “I feel like I could walk off on my own and just had to give it a break. It feels good.”
Emmanwori said that he will “be good to go” on Sunday.
Emmanwori’s own statements appeared to echo those of head coach Mike Macdonald, who said at a press conference prior to Thursday’s Seahawks practice that Emmanwori was “fully expected” to play in the Super Bowl.
Emmanwori ‘Confident’ He Will Play in Super Bowl
Emmanwori appeared at the Seahawks’ Thursday media session and was seen walking without a boot, brace or crutches visible. In the video, the second-round draft pick out of South Carolina does not appear to be limping with the same severity shown in the previous night’s video from outside the team hotel in downtown San Jose, California.
According to Seattle Times reporter Bob Condotta, Emmanwori said at the media session that he “feels good, is confident he will play. Said it was the same ankle as the Week 1 injury but indicated not really the same.”
Emmanwori missed three games with the early-season injury, which was diagnosed as a high ankle sprain. According to Macdonald, the rookie’s new injury is a low ankle sprain.
Low ankle sprains are also known as “inversion” injuries, meaning that they are caused by the ankle rolling the wrong way, “causing the ligaments below the ankle joint on the outside of the ankle – the anterior talofibular ligament (ATFL) and the calcaneofibular (CFL) ligament – to stretch or tear,” according to information from Bone & Joint Surgery Clinic in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Emmanwori Imaging Set For Thursday
The Seahawks earlier announced that Emmanwori would undergo imaging on the right ankle on Thursday. Whether those plans would go ahead following Emmanwori’s public appearance remained unclear.
Fans should not read too much into the possibility that the star safety may undergo the imaging tests, however, according to Emerald City Spectrum reporter Corbin K. Smith.
“NFL teams tend to do their due diligence and be better safe than sorry when it comes to injuries,” Smith wrote on social media. “Doesn’t mean it will show a significant injury. But only way they can know if he has one for sure.”
Seahawks Injured Nick Emmanwori Reveals if He’ll Play in Super Bowl