Jody Allen private jet returns Gavin Heslop from Houston surgery; Chris Carson upbeat
Seahawks fans are wondering how involved Jody Allen is in the team.
Gavin Heslop isn’t wondering. He loves how the team chair is involved in her team.
Allen sent her private jet to Houston to fly Heslop back to Seattle following the defensive back’s surgery this week to stabilize two broken bones in his leg.
Heslop was injured subbing for resting starter Quandre Diggs at safety in the final minute of the Seahawks’ win over the Texans in Houston on Sunday. He was taken from the field on a stretcher wearing an air cast over his fractured fibula and tibia, then to a Houston hospital. That’s where the 24-year-old Heslop stayed, while the Seahawks flew home Sunday night on their team charter jet without him.
Asked Wednesday if Heslop got back in Seattle, coach Pete Carroll said, “Yes, he did. As a matter of fact, the owner sent a plane for him, got him back here so we could take care of him.
“His spirits are good, and all that. The surgery looks as if it was perfectly successful... But, yeah, we are happy to have him back.”
The Seahawks kept a member of their athletic-training staff and another member of the team’s public-relations department with Heslop in Texas.
It’s 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 — for the owner to send her private jet to bring Heslop home with the team staffers.
The undrafted rookie free agent from Stony Brook Seattle was added 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 Diggs, their Pro Bowl veteran, at the end of a 20-point blowout, Heslop sustained a serious leg injury on a play he wasn’t really in. It came with just a minute 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 snapped below the knee 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.
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 in Houston.
That will be same arrangement this Sunday when the Seahawks (5-8) try to keep their slim playoffs hopes alive at the Los Angeles Rams (9-4).
Carson encouraged for 2022
Lead running back Chris Carson had his surgery to repair a long-standing cervical issue in his neck.
“He sounds very positive about coming back to us, and real anxious to get back with his guys and all that,” Carroll said. “He sounded good, for what he just went through.”
Last month, the Seahawks shut down Carson for the rest of the 2021 season. He played just four games, gaining 252 yards and scoring three touchdowns. He did not feel enough reduction in constant discomfort in his neck since his last game, Oct. 3 at San Francisco.
The Seahawks believe the cervical surgery now to fix an issue in a vertebrae in the bullish Carson’s neck will allow their 27-year-old running back to return to play for them next season. The 2022 season is the final one of a $10-plus-million contract for the man who was supposed to be the basis for first-year play caller Shane Waldron’s offense this year.
Issues with his neck and vertebrae obviously make nothing about Carson’s football future guaranteed.
Carson briefly shopped in free agency this past spring but found the running-back market cratered on him. That was partly because of the nature of the NFL’s most-injured position with the shortest career lengths, partly because Carson has yet to play a full season injury-free since junior college.
He ultimately returned to the Seahawks on a two-year deal worth $10,425,000. He received $5.5 million guaranteed for 2021, less than he had been seeking since the summer of 2020 when coming off seasons with 1,151 yards and 1,230 yards rushing in 2018 and ‘19, respectively.
Carson earned little of the up to $6.9 million he could have received in incentive bonuses this season.
This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 4:37 PM.
