Williams: Sean Lee is looking for a little luck to help him stay healthy for 16 games

Sean Lee is looking for a little luck to help him stay healthy for 16 games


Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee has an idea how to avoid the injuries that have dogged his career since college.

“It’s been a little bit of a luck deal,” Lee said Thursday. “I’m going to hopefully carry around a rabbit foot this year and rub on it, and hopefully it’ll help me a little bit.”

Lee, entering his fourth season, has yet to play a full, 16-game season. He missed the final 10 games of the 2012 season with torn ligaments in his right big toe.

“I want to win. I want to be healthy,” Lee said. “When it comes to injuries, you can only control what you can control and that is work hard every day and make sure you take of yourself off the field when it comes to nutrition and training and all the stuff you can do to make yourself fresh. But at some point, it’s football and injuries happen. I think I’ve shown ability to come back from injuries. I think I’ve come back better from injuries. I think that’s a positive. I hope I can play and never miss a game again in the future, but I know if I do, I’ll be able to come back and help our team win in the future.”

-- Charean Williams

It's not luck. Lee has a body that can't do what he wants it to do. Fatigue, lack of ideal strength-- whatever the physical weakness-- makes us a tiny step slower than we want to be. That puts a foot or hand where it shouldn't be a fraction of a second to late.

The only way to preserve this guy's career is to limit his exposure. That means putting more effective blockers in front of him, rotating him with other players, giving him rangier safeties so he doesn't feel he has to run out of position, and giving him a lead to reduce the number of hits he has to take stuffing the run. Dallas has sucked at all of the above, so there is hope things can improve before Lee gets old.