Falcons Rookie LB Kendal Daniels Ruled Out With Neck Injury Amid Blowout

A neck injury is scary enough on its own, but getting ruled out while your defense is actively giving up 31 points to the Chicago Bears is a special kind of brutal. The Atlanta Falcons officially pulled the plug on rookie linebacker Kendal Daniels for the rest of Sunday afternoon, according to ESPN's Marc Raimondi.

When a team slaps the official out designation on a player this quickly, you know it is not just a minor stinger you can stretch out on the sideline. The medical staff took one look and decided his day was done.

"ESPN's Marc Raimondi reported that Daniels was officially ruled out with a neck injury."

Losing Daniels is a massive blow to an Atlanta defense that is currently getting run off its own field. The 6-foot-5, 242-pound rookie out of Oklahoma has been one of the few reliable pieces for this unit, racking up 22 combined tackles over his first five career games.

He was just starting to find his rhythm at the professional level. Daniels posted a career-high eight tackles and his first NFL sack last week against the Baltimore Ravens, looking every bit like the foundational piece the front office drafted him to be.

Now he gets to watch from the locker room while Chicago turns the Falcons defense into a live-action drill. For anyone holding an under ticket on the Bears team total, watching Atlanta lose their most promising young thumper was the exact moment your slip caught fire.

Neck injuries for linebackers are the kind of red flag that makes medical staffs extremely cautious. Atlanta will likely send him for a full battery of scans on Monday to figure out if this is a short-term tweak or a lingering issue.

Until then, the Falcons have to figure out how to stop the bleeding without him. If the rest of this Bears game is any indication, that is going to be a massive problem.