Seahawks try out former 1st-round pick Reuben Foster. He hasn’t played since 2018
Reuben Foster hasn’t played a football game in four years.
He’s trying to impress the Seahawks — and reclamation-minded coach Pete Carroll — into a return.
The former Alabama All-American linebacker and first-round draft choice five years ago was at Seahawks headquarters in Renton Sunday for a free-agent tryout. NFL Network first reported the tryout with Seattle for Foster, whose NFL career has been derailed by arrests, suspensions and a major knee injury.
Carroll almost annually signs once-heralded, top-drafted players who have failed on and off the field elsewhere. The coach believes he brings out the previous and best in such reclamation projects.
In recent years that’s included Seattle signing Josh Gordon, Robert Nkemdiche and Dion Jordan.
Sunday was a players off day from practice in training camp. So Foster’s tryout had the coaches’ full attention.
Foster, 28, hasn’t played since October 2018 with San Francisco. The 49ers drafted him in the first round the previous year, when he was the Butkus Award winner as major college football’s top linebacker. Foster got sent away from the 2017 NFL scouting combine for an outburst against a medical worker there. He failed a drug test at the combine for a diluted sample.
He started 10 games for San Francisco in his rookie season. The following offseason into 2018 he was arrested three times. Charges included second-degree possession of marijuana, felony domestic violence, forcefully attempting to prevent a victim from reporting a crime, possession of an assault weapon and first-degree domestic battery.
The league suspended him for the first two games of the 2018 season violating its polices on substance abuse and personal conduct.
He started six games for San Francisco that season. The 49ers waived him after he got arrested in November 2018. Washington claimed him off waivers but he didn’t play for that team. He spent the rest of that season on the commissioner’s exempt list during a league investigation of his latest arrest.
All the charges against Foster were eventually dismissed, except for possession of an assault weapon in Santa Clara County, California. He pleaded no contest to that charge on June 6, 2018. He received two years probation, a requirement of 232 hours of community service and a fine.
The NFL reinstated him from the exempt list in the spring of 2019. But in May of that year he tore the anterior cruciate ligament and lateral collateral ligament in his left knee during an offseason practice with Washington.
He hasn’t been with a team since then.
Seattle’s linebacker depth is thin.
The Seahawks released All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner in March. Ben Burr-Kirven, the former University of Washington inside linebacker, went on injured reserve this past week and is out for the season following multiple knee surgeries.
Outside linebacker K.J. Wright, Seattle’s former 10-year linebacker and Super Bowl champion, retired last week. The team signed pass-rushing linebacker Uchenna Nwosu from the Los Angeles Chargers in free agency this spring. Nwosu has looked fast in training camp. He is playing opposite third-year outside linebacker Darrell Taylor, with Jordyn Brooks and Cody Barton inside in Seattle’s new 3-4 scheme this summer.
Foster has been living in Miami the last two years since his major knee injury. He was scheduled to work out for the Miami Dolphins in May, according to the Miami Herald. That was after tryouts for Cleveland, Jacksonville and the New York Jets in September 2021.
Yet he’s remained unsigned.
This story was originally published July 31, 2022 at 12:43 PM.
