Seahawks DE Branden Jackson (Head) Sent Home, Returns to Team Facility

Following a scary head injury suffered in Saturday's mock scrimmage, Jackson was able to drive himself home from the hospital and returned to the Seahawks facility on Sunday morning for COVID-19 testing.

After being knocked unconscious during the Seahawks mock game at CenturyLink Field, defensive end Brandon Jackson was released from the hospital on Saturday night.

Per Brady Henderson of ESPN, Jackson is wearing a neck brace for precautionary reasons and will be evaluated over the next few days. He was able to drive himself home from the team facility and returned on Sunday morning for Seattle's daily COVID-19 testing.

Late in the second quarter of Saturday's scrimmage, Jackson was involved in a helmet-to-helmet collision with tackle Cedric Ogbuehi as the two were engaged at the line of scrimmage. The veteran defender dropped to the turf and laid there for several minutes as medical personnel strapped him to a backboard, removed his face mask from his helmet, and sent him to the hospital in an ambulance.

Jackson regained consciousness shortly after the collision and according to coach Pete Carroll, he had feeling in all of his extremities. But without the proper medical facilities at the stadium, the Seahawks didn't take any chances and sent him to the hospital for proper evaluation.

"I didn't catch the replay, but he hit heads, I think, with Cedric and it might have caught him in the chin with his helmet, and it was like a knockout punch is what it was," Carroll told reporters. "So we took all the precautions and took care of him. He had movement and all that kind of stuff, but we still needed to do the right thing and totally take care of him until we know more."

The injury happened just moments before what would have been a normal 12-minute halftime period for the Seahawks. Out of respect for Jackson, who Carroll called "one of our all-time favorite guys," he opted to call off the rest of the scrimmage and players were sent home early.

"I didn't think it was right to try to get everybody cranked back up again and go back out," Carroll explained. "We didn't need to do that, but we had gotten enough done. We'll take the plays that we got and what we learned from it. We accomplished the things we needed to accomplish coming to the stadium."

Jackson, 27, originally joined the Seahawks off waivers shortly after the start of the 2017 season. The former undrafted rookie out of Texas Tech has developed into a valuable reserve during three seasons with the organization, recording 41 tackles and 3.5 sacks in 36 games, including four starts.

Originally signed to an original round tender as a restricted free agent, Seattle released Jackson in July but brought him back on a more team-friendly one-year deal shortly before reporting for training camp. As he has done throughout his five-year NFL career, he has been battling for one of the final roster spots at defensive end.