Gavin Heslop to fly to Seattle after surgery in Houston. Good Seahawks news on Bryan Mone
Gavin Heslop’s frightening scene and situation have turned positive.
The 24-year-old Seahawks defensive back had surgery in Houston into Monday to stabilize two broken bones in his leg.
Coach Pete Carroll said Heslop is due back in the Seattle area later this week.
“He had real successful surgery. He sounded way better, (was) much more upbeat about that everything worked out OK and all that,” Carroll said Monday, upon the team returning home without Heslop from beating the Texans 33-13 in Houston Sunday.
“He’ll get back here in a couple days.”
The Seahawks kept a member of their athletic-training staff and another member of the team’s public-relations department with Heslop in Texas on Sunday night and Monday.
Normal procedure for Seattle in cases such as these — serious medical situations after games in Dallas with wide receiver Darrell Jackson and Ricardo Lockette in past seasons, for instance — is for team chair Jody Allen to send her private jet to bring Heslop home with the team staffers.
Heslop, an undrafted rookie free agent from Stony Brook the Seahawks signed in 2020, signed onto Seattle’s active roster from the practice squad Friday. He was playing his third NFL game Sunday.
Playing only because coaches were resting Pro Bowl veteran free safety Quandre Diggs at the end of a 20-point blowout, Heslop sustained a serious leg injury on a play he wasn’t really in, with just 59 seconds remaining in the game. He was standing with his legs straight and firmly planted in the artificial turf at NRG Stadium when Nico Collins rolled onto the bottom of his left leg, as Seattle teammate Bless Austin finished a tackle of the Texans wide receiver on a reception away from Heslop.
Heslop’s leg appeared to snap as he collapsed to the turf. He stayed down for minutes. Paramedics came to put what appeared to be a inflatable cast on his left leg.
A motorized cart came onto the field. As he sat on the back of it, Diggs came over to shake Heslop’s hand. Quarterback Russell Wilson tapped him on the left shoulder.
Heslop dropped his head into his gloved, right hand as the cart drove him from the field.
“He broke both bones, the tibia-fibula and had to get it fixed up,” Carroll said.
The broken leg creates odds longer than Heslop’s already were in the NFL. His contract to be on the 53-man active roster wasn’t guaranteed beyond this week, let alone this season into next year. Now he may be facing an indefinite span of recovery and rehabilitation before he can play again.
Heslop joined the roster from the practice squad days after another safety, Pro Bowl veteran Jamal Adams, had season-ending shoulder surgery. Diggs had usual sixth, dime defensive back Ryan Neal starting next to him instead of Adams Sunday in Houston.
Good news on Mone
Carroll had more good news on defensive tackle Bryan Mone. He was the other Seahawk who got carted off the field in Houston, with what appeared to be a serious knee injury.
The team’s fears of Mone having a torn anterior cruciate ligament ended when tests revealed the big tackle has a sprain of the less vulnerable posterior cruciate ligament, instead.
Carroll mentioned the possibility Mone might be able to play Sunday when the Seahawks (5-8) take their unlikely chances to rally into the playoffs into Inglewood, California, to play their division rival Rams (8-4 entering their game Monday night at Arizona).
“He sprained his knee, somewhat. It seems like it’s a PCL sprain that he’s getting along real well today,” Carroll said. “Really, very surprised he was getting around as well (Monday). So we’ll just have to wait and see.
“We’ll take care of him during the week and found out at the end of the week if he will be OK. But it was a very positive report, relative to not knowing whether it was an ACL and all that (Sunday). We’ll keep our fingers crossed that he’ll be OK.”
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Mone has been part of Seattle’s huge interior defensive line headlined by Al Woods that has held opponents to under 95 yards rushing in five of the last seven games. Houston had 63 yards on the ground Sunday.
This story was originally published December 13, 2021 at 3:51 PM.
