And just like that, Sam Montgomery heads to injured reserve

Just two days ago, the Raiders signed defensive end Sam Montgomery to their practice squad and now he has been placed on injured reserve. The rookie out of LSU was chosen in the third round in the 2013 draft by the Texans but was cut in October for violating team rules.

The once highly touted defensive end was out of work for two months before the Raiders signed him. This made it seem like there was more to this story than met the eye. Perhaps it was injury concern?

He showed up to Texans camp out of shape and then suffered an ankle injury his first day of practice on August 1. Texans coach Gary Kubiak was very frustrated with Montgomery from the first day he showed up.

"He's way behind the team. Way behind," said Kubiak at the time. "He's behind conditioning wise and, now, he's got an ankle that he can do nothing about. It's not his fault, but he's way behind. Got to get back out here."

Now, Montgomery is placed on injured reserve on his first day of Raiders practice.

"He got hurt the first day of practice so we had to put him on practice squad IR. . . it's a knee," said Dennis Allen. "He's a talented player. We wanted to get him in here and take a look at him to see if he's somebody that we could work into the future. And obviously he had the injury so we weren't able to get very much of an evaluation on him and had to put him on IR."

Montgomery's off the field issues are what had him cut from the Texans in the first place. As the 95th overall pick in the third round, he was the highest drafted rookie to be cut. Allen and the Raiders thought it was worth a shot to bring him in anyway despite his reported character issues.

"That was something that we took a look at and what better way to find out than to bring him into the building and see what you got," Allen said. "So, it was really kind of a low risk proposition and it didn't work out."

There could be a bright side to this. If indeed it was merely injury concerns that had Montgomery go unsigned to an NFL squad for two months, it stands to reason that once he's fully healthy, he could possibly live up to some of the potential he had in college. We will have to wait until at least May to find out.

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