Kendal Daniels appears to be perfectly fine.
Daniels, just a week removed from a scary neck injury that forced him to be stretchered off the field, came up with a game-sealing fumble recovery on Sunday afternoon to lift the Atlanta Falcons past the San Francisco 49ers.
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The Falcons were up by nine late at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, trying to fend off one last-ditch effort from the 49ers. With less than a minute left, San Francisco tight end George Kittle caught a wide open pass and was breaking to the middle of the field, seemingly putting the 49ers into scoring position.
But Jessie Bates dove for Kittle’s legs and managed to just barely trip him up. As he was stumbling forward, Kittle lost the ball — which allowed Daniels to fly in and land on it untouched.
That secured the 29-20 win for the Falcons, and officially handed the 49ers their first loss of the season.
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Daniels ended up leading the Falcons with a career-high 11 total tackles on Sunday, nine of which he did by himself. While the fumble recovery was the most important, he was a force for the Atlanta defense all afternoon. Daniels, who the Falcons took in the fourth round of the NFL Draft out of Oklahoma, is now up to 40 total tackles this season.
But Sunday’s outing came on the heels of what was a scary looking injury in their Week 7 matchup with the Chicago Bears. Daniels came flying in to try and tackle Bears tight end Colston Loveland, and he remained down on the field for roughly 10 minutes before being carted off.
But just days later, Daniels was back at practice and had been cleared to return.
“I scared a lot of people,” Daniels said, via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was a scary play. I’m blessed to come out how I did, and it was a bang-bang play, but I’m happy I’m here.”
The Falcons now sit at 3-4 on the season after Sunday’s win. They’ll take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next week in Florida.
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And Daniels, now with his terrifying neck injury clearly behind him, can keep pushing forward in what has been an already impressive rookie campaign.
