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After CB E.J. Gaines put up an impressive rookie season in 2014 followed by a 2015 season ended before it started due to injury, Los Angeles Rams fans were eager to see him return to form and help buttress the secondary as Trumaine Johnson bumps up to fill the CB1 slot vacated by a departed Janoris Jenkins.
So with the biggest concern being coming off of injury and a year plus of a life without active football? Breath, baited:
Fisher said corner EJ Gaines, who had been playing his way back into the rotation, "came up a little lame" near end of practice today.
— Rich Hammond (@Rich_Hammond) August 4, 2016
Much like Pharoh Cooper pulling up on his quad, this isn’t the kind of injury that sounds like it mandates a ton of time to be missed. The concern is the same as I outlined in the Cooper piece.
Does this slow his return to the point that it allows Lamarcus Joyner, Marcus Roberson or Coty Sensabaugh to impress in the time theretofore? And secondly, does he rush himself back to action and worsen the injury or play less than 100%?
We’re still more than a week to the first preseason game of the 2016 Los Angeles Rams season. There’s nothing to suggest this won’t be something we point back to in October and November as something that ended up never materializing in something worse.
But the last thing you want to deal with right now are injury concerns for players who are coming off of injury, especially one who missed all of 2015 because of one.
Here’s to this being the last time we discuss “E.J. Gaines” and “injury” in the same story.