Commanders safety Kam Curl OUT for Week 1 vs. Jaguars originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
The Washington Commanders will be down one of their best players on defense for Sunday’s Week 1 contest against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Safety Kam Curl (thumb) has been ruled out, the team announced following Friday’s practice. Curl missed all four of the team’s practices this week.
Head coach Ron Rivera did not sound too worried about Curl’s status moving forward, saying he’s “optimistic” this Sunday will be the only game the safety misses.
“I’m pretty optimistic, but again, I’m not the doctor,” Rivera told reporters. “We’ll have to wait and see. But I feel pretty good about how he’s recovering and he’s healing up.”
On Monday, Curl spoke with reports and confirmed he had surgery on his right thumb, which he said he injured during Washington’s second preseason game against the Chiefs. Curl had hopes to play in Week 1 at the time, but he was unable to practice the entire week.
Curl began the week with a short-arm cast on his right thumb but was able to ditch the cast later in the week. During Thursday’s practice, the safety was stretching with his teammates wearing just a brace on that thumb.
With Curl sidelined against Jacksonville, Rivera said the team will take a “by committee” approach to replace the third-year safety. That likely means a rotation between second-year veteran Darrick Forrest, rookie Percy Butler and veteran Jeremy Reaves.
“We have a few guys that we have a lot of confidence in, guys that have had a good couple of weeks in terms of preparation just in case [Curl] wasn’t ready,” Rivera said.”We’ll just plug those guys in.”
Elsewhere on the injury report, the Commanders have a pair of tight ends, Logan Thomas (knee) and Cole Turner (hamstring), questionable for Sunday’s game. Both players were full participants in practice on Friday, which is usually a positive sign when it comes to playing status on Sunday.
