Jay Gruden tells players to try and avoid Sean Lee situation

The Dallas Cowboys lost one of their best defensive players for the entire 2014 season even before training camp had begun. At OTA’s this past week, Lee was pummeled by rookie Zack Martin during a play and Lee’s knee gave out on him.

After tests it was revealed that Lee tore his ACL, which will force him to miss the entire season. It is a truly unfortunate injury considering that OTA’s are meant to be non-contact.

The Cowboys division rival Washington Redskins took note of Lee’s injury, and now head coach Jay Gruden is stressing to his players to avoid any similar situations (Courtesy of ProFootballTalk):

"The approach in OTAs has been pretty standardized by the NFL as far as the Collective Bargaining Agreement with no contact. But sometimes when you have 11-on-11 drills, people get tangled up and it’s unfortunate for Sean. We brought that up to our team again this morning about staying on your feet, doing the best you can to avoid any kind of drag downs, pull downs, contact. But every now and then you are going to have a collision, unfortunately, because it is football and guys are trying to show that they are doing right, but we are trying our best to police that and keep people up. It is something [where] we are definitely keeping an eye on them and making sure we preach every day about staying up."

Football is already a sport that provides many injuries on it’s own and the players know that. It is a great move by Gruden to harp and stress to his players the importance of non-contact drills during OTA’s to avoid injuries that otherwise should not occur.