It's hard to find a comparable situation to Dante Fowler, the third pick of the draft who suffered a season-ending knee injury in his first practice after the draft.
Fowler, the Jacksonville Jaguars' new pass rusher out of the University of Florida, was drafted third overall just eight days before tearing his ACL in an offseason practice. ESPN's Adam Schefter confirmed the extent of the injury. Fowler is done for the season.
Running back Ki-Jana Carter, the first pick of the 1995 draft by the Cincinnati Bengals, tore his ACL on his third carry of his first preseason game. At least he made it to the preseason. According to ESPN, via Elias Sports Bureau, Carter was the last top-three pick to not play the season after he was drafted because of injury. Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Aaron Taylor tore his ACL in his third practice of rookie minicamp after he was the 16th pick of the 1994 draft. He missed his rookie season.
Let's just say what happened to Fowler is incredibly rare for an elite draft pick.
It's a horrible break for a Jaguars franchise that could use some luck. The Jaguars have had four straight double-digit loss seasons, went 3-13 last year and now will go through this season without the player they picked third overall to boost the pass rush.
It's a tough deal for offensive tackle Watts Dantzler too. He's a rookie from Georgia who was at the minicamp on a tryout, like many other players. He was doing his job when Fowler went down. Hays Carlyon, a beat writer for the Florida Times-Union, said on Twitter that Dantzler said "he's getting killed on Twitter for it and he feels terrible." Nobody who was there seems to believe Dantzler did anything wrong, it was just bad luck.
"I went to apologize to him and he was like, ‘You’re good, man. It’s just football,'" Dantzler told Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com.
What's done is done, and now the Jaguars have to go through the season without Fowler. Injuries happen all the time, even to prized rookies. Usually not this soon, though.
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