Robert Nkemdiche out two weeks with high ankle sprain

After falling to almost the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft, Robert Nkemdiche will likely miss a couple weeks of training camp with a high ankle sprain.

It’s been a rough year for former Ole Miss defensive lineman and first round draft pick Robert Nkemdiche.

After an incident involving marijuana in late December last year, Nkemdiche missed Ole Miss’ victory in the Sugar Bowl over Oklahoma State the next month. Nkemdiche fell in the draft due to the incident that led to him falling out of a fourth-story window and was taken by the Arizona Cardinals at No. 29.

But, Cardinal fans won’t see their first-rounder on the field in action to starting training camp. Nkemdiche missed the first practice of training camp and was seen on the field in a walking boot after suffering a high ankle sprain, according to head coach Bruce Arians, via Darren Urban.

That’s a tough start to Nkemdiche’s NFL career. He is already battling uphill after plummeting in the draft earlier this year. Before the incident, he was seen as a likely top-10 pick and a potential option as the No. 1 pick in the draft. Throw in a high ankle sprain (which are always tricky) and the battle just got a bit tougher for Nkemdiche.

Luckily for him, it’s just training camp time and he landed in a good home with Bruce Arians and the Cardinals. If there’s one coach in the NFL and one organization that gets the most of their players, it’s Arizona. Look at what Tyrann Mathieu has done after his issues coming out of LSU and you can see that being with the Cardinals is a good thing for some young players.

Nkemdiche is a physical specimen, so it won’t be surprising if he comes back quicker than expected either.

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