Though there’s been some negativity coming out on Sammie Coates during the spring, he has a couple good excuses. Last season was a trying one for him on the injury front. A busted hand. A groin injury. Even wisdom teeth that needed to be removed. It’s fair to assume Coates isn’t completely healthy and he essentially confirmed that in this Jeremy Fowler article.
He told Fowler and ESPN that he’s “getting there,” and working on getting himself in shape for training camp.
“I’m starting to get back my speed,” Coates said.
It was Coates’ groin injury that required surgery, which he reportedly had in January, right after the season. He opted against going under the knife for his hand, letting it heal on its own. He’s told reporters his hand is close to full health and the goal is to keep working on regaining strength.
Injury and recovery has been the theme for him since basically Week 5 of last year. Previously, he’s also talked about the mental toll the injuries took on him last season.
“When you have one bad game, it becomes a domino effect, and you let it go into the next game and the next game,” he told Joe Rutter in late May. “I started thinking more about my finger than playing football”.
Coates would go onto say the toll “broke him down mentally.” Credit to him for gutting out an obviously rough season, though again I wonder why the team just didn’t decide to shut him down entirely.
He’s a hard player to get a read on. Some days sound promising, some days, not so much. I know I’ve been optimistic about a bounce-back year in 2017 and honestly, still am. While he’s had a shaky start to the spring, it sounds like that can be attributed to a guy not fully healthy yet. He’ll need to be for camp, however, to ensure his roster spot at a Subway-crowded position.
