RENTON – You might be able to predict the first six words that flashed through Chris Spencer’s mind when a player fell across the back of his leg, causing the Seahawks center to tumble to the ground in pain.
After the first two words you might expect, the next four were: “Here we go again.”
Spencer was hurt early in last season’s training camp, too, and he ended up missing five games in 2008. Although he started all 16 in 2007, the offensive line was a chronic weakness and Spencer was not entirely convincing.
He knows as well as anybody that a first-round pick in his fifth season should be at the very core of a team’s strength, not be one of the team’s largest question marks.
All this added to his worries and frustrations Friday morning as he was carted off the field and awaited the MRI results.
The diagnosis: a sprain, but no tears and no fractures. By Wednesday, he was back on the field.
“I’m blessed to be able to get out here so fast,” Spencer said. “To have something I can’t control happen was real scary, ... (but) I dodged a bullet.”
Spencer was locked up with a defender at the line when somebody behind him fell on the back of his leg.
If it was a painful sense of repetitive history for Spencer, it was probably a nauseating reminder for everybody else involved, too, as injuries caused last season’s offensive line to become a piecemeal puzzle in which no player across the front was able to start more than 12 games.
Although Spencer returned to the field Wednesday, he was not active in team sessions, when the first-unit offensive line had exactly zero players in the position expected of them when camp opened less than two weeks ago.
When camp opened, general manager Tim Ruskell pointed to a few players who deserved “gold stars” for their above-the-call-of-duty diligence in the offseason. Spencer was one of them.
“I worked so hard this offseason; I went up to Vancouver (B.C.) to work with Rick Celebrini,” Spencer said of the physiotherapist who has trained NBA All-Star Steve Nash and Hawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck. “I was going back and forth up there all the time; whenever we got a break in offseason workouts or had a weekend, I was working out with him, two or three hours at a time, pretty much all winter.”
The goal was to strengthen his core and provide support for a troublesome back.
After the June minicamp, Spencer stayed in Canada for almost a month and a half working with Celebrini and another trainer.
What did this dedication reveal about Spencer’s mind-set coming into this season?
“I am focused,” he said. “Really focused. You put in all that hard work, you’re not going to want it to go to waste.”
Spencer said he learned a great deal in Seattle’s dismal 4-12 season. And it inspired him to get healthy.
“Last year, I learned that we have a group of men who work very hard,” he said. “There was no give-up; I saw a lot of guys who kept fighting, and that played into my offseason. It means a lot to me to be healthy and to play a season at the highest level I can play. Being banged up makes it hard to play in this league.”
Obviously, the start has been shaky for Spencer. And he knows there’s much to prove.
His ability to stay fit and in the lineup will remain a concern. But after hearing all that Spencer has done to get healthy, if there are more problems this season, it’s apparent that it will not be from a lack of effort on his part.
daveboling@thenewstribune.com
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