‘Natural-born leader’ Weatherspoon comes to Arizona after pair of injury-plagued seasons
Jun 10, 2015, 2:31 PM | Updated: 4:02 pm
Arizona Cardinals free agent signee Sean Weatherspoon has played just 20 of 48 games across the last two seasons, but he’s having none of it when it comes to questions about his health.
Weatherspoon told Doug and Wolf of Arizona Sports 98.7 Wednesday that he cannot play with any doubt of his body being able to hold up.
“You can’t go out there like that,” he said. “You just trust it, man. Strong in my faith. I believe that everything happens for a reason and there’s a reason why I’m here out in Arizona. My whole life has kind of changed in two days.”
The 6-foot-2, 244-pound linebacker missed the entire 2014 season after rupturing his Achilles tendon while with the Atlanta Falcons, one of a string of injuries that have cost him time during his short career.
“Most of the time when I went down, it’s been some friendly fire,” Weatherspoon said. “This last little incident was kind of like a freak incident, rupturing my Achilles just working out with my trainers. That was something that had me down.”
Weatherspoon looks use his six years of NFL experience to boost a veteran-laden defensive unit.
“I’m a natural-born leader,” Weatherspoon said. “That’s just what I’ve always done. I’m not going to sit back and somebody else take the initiative. I’m going to step up and be that guy that’s going to let everybody know what the play is, and he we should be doing it. I’m going to talk that talk and walk that walk.”
Weatherspoon has 212 career total tackles in six seasons in the NFL, all previously with the Falcons. The Cardinals signed Weatherspoon to a one-year, $3.85 million contract earlier this offseason.
