Eskimos not sure extent of Greenwood’s latest injury
Edmonton Eskimos training camp is moving on with or without Cory Greenwood.
On Tuesday, the club was awaiting medical results to determine the extent of an injury suffered by the outside linebacker, who had to be carted off the field during hitting drills Monday.
“We’re getting him evaluated, we’re not sure just yet,” said Eskimos general manager Brock Sunderland. “It’s a leg injury. We’re going to know more specifics after he gets an MRI.”
There was no indication as to how long Greenwood will be out.
“We don’t want to speculate,” Sunderland said. “We’re not real sure yet, so we’re going to get the imaging and see exactly what it is before we proceed further.”
While training camp injuries are nothing new — the Eskimos suffered season-ending losses to starting cornerback John Ojo last year and starting running back John White in 2015 to a torn Achilles — this one is particularly painful on a roster that had been gearing itself up to make the WILL linebacker spot Canadian.
The off-season acquisition of Greenwood made it particularly attractive considering he played 48 games in the NFL with the Kansas City Chiefs.
“It’s difficult, but we’ve built depth there,” Sunderland said. “It’s a position that we planned on paper going national at, so next man up.
“I think the world of Cory as a person first and as a player, and we know that’s a big loss if it is a loss. We’ll find out, but we’re capable if he is down.”
If it’s any indication, Greenwood was removed from the list of names depth-charted at WIL linebacker Tuesday, while fellow Canadians Adam Konar and Blair Smith picked up the slack in practice.
SECOND VERSE
Tuesday kicked off the first two-aday session of training camp.
“Physicality jumps up, for sure,” Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly said following a second on-field session that saw the players suit up in pads.
“When you’re not working with pads, it’s tough on the O- and Dline because they’re trying to fit into their gaps and do all these different things, and they’re trying to go 100 miles-per-hour, but they don’t have pads to beat up on each other with.
“So you hope that the physicality increases when you put the pads on, I think that it did. Also in the secondary, our wideouts and DBs were getting after each other today.”
IN AND OUT
SB Brandon Zylstra remains on the sidelines at Eskimos camp with a pulled groin
“We’re just going to re-evaluate him tomorrow, that’s the plan,” said Eskimos head coach Jason Maas, adding Zylstra sustained the injury three or four weeks ahead of training camp. “Our docs looked at him and we felt like if we held him out for a few days, we could re-evaluate him.
“Zylstra is important to our plan overall and we don’t want to have him have anything that’s going to linger on for an extended period of time. If we took the time for him to rest early, it would pay off for us in the end.”
It’s a break that’s seldom given to young players in a training camp setting where roster numbers are capped and opportunities aren’t easy to come by.
“After winning a job opportunity to come into training camp, being locked in on the practice roster the whole entire year and then, when we had him step into a role for five games, he played at an extremely high level,” Maas said. “He also was injured in the East final and played right through it.
“So that type of a person, you’re always going to give him a little bit more rope than anybody else. If he hadn’t played and he wasn’t that kind of guy, he wouldn’t be afforded this opportunity. But he’s earned that.”