What’s next for Seahawks LB Jordyn Brooks after he passed physical

The Seattle Seahawks dropped some very good news on Tuesday, revealing that inside linebacker Jordyn Brooks has passed his physical, meaning he can come off the preseason PUP (physically unable to perform) list.

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Brooks, 25, was a first-round pick of the Seahawks in 2020 out of Texas Tech and has been a key part of Seattle’s defense ever since. Brooks was the team’s leading tackler each of the last two years.

But Brooks suffered a major injury late last season when he tore his ACL in Week 17. Now, roughly eight months since his surgery, he’s passed his physical and could soon be practicing.

During Tuesday’s Bump and Stacy on Seattle Sports, Michael Bumpus and Stacy Rost reacted to the news.

“Now, they’re not going to have them out there practicing full speed. I would assume they put them in a helmet just to start,” Bumpus said. “Who knows what the progression is going to be like? But for Jordyn Brooks to pass his physical, like I mentioned earlier, it just means that he did everything necessary. He didn’t take any days off.”

As Bumpus noted, Brooks likely won’t be going full speed right away, but when he’s activated from the PUP list he can go through walkthroughs as well as portions of practice.

“Activating someone from the PUP list, the preseason PUP list, means you cannot place him back on it,” Rost said. “So the Seahawks had to be sure that they wouldn’t need to place him back on the preseason PUP list and take him off there to create a roster response. So they have to at least be confident in doing this that he’s going to be able to stay healthy and continue to recover and work into things throughout the rest of the preseason.”

Bumpus, a former NFL and college receiver, spoke about what the mental side of things will look like for Brooks in coming back from such a serious injury.

“For me at least, it was believing in your body again,” Bumpus said.

Bumpus dealt with a broken bone in his foot and got a screw in it. He said it was still sore and he could feel it and that it was “tender to the touch.”

“So as a receiver, it was running full speed and sticking my left foot in the ground with no care in the world world and being able to snap it off,” Bumpus said. “I would assume with Jordyn Brooks it’s going to be some of the same things, right? ‘Can I go left to right, can I accelerate break down and do all that stuff and not have to think about it?’ There’s gonna be an adjustment going on, but the way that he’s recovered lets me know that mentally he’s just very strong and believes in the process.”

With Brooks being activated, the Seahawks have three players still on PUP, including safety Jamal Adams (quad).

“It is huge news for — and this is important — a thin linebacker group,” Rost said. “Maybe linebacker depth doesn’t especially matter when you’ve got a lot of secondary pieces to work with because you’re gonna want to be in nickel quite a bit, so maybe you have your outside rushers and Bobby (Wagner). But what happens if Bobby needs to take a break? You want Jordyn Brooks as a former first-round pick, you want to get him out there. So it’s great news for the linebacker group. Pause on how quickly Jordyn Brooks is going to be able to get back into the swing of things, though. Just let him work his way back, you know what I mean? Don’t expect Jordyn Brooks is going to be out there (for the Seahawks’ preseason game on) Saturday.”

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