Leave it to the Bills to wait until the last second to pull out a win like that! K Stephen Hauschka’s game winning kick to give the Bills a 13-12 win over the Tennessee Titans propels Buffalo to a 2-3 record and momentum going into their Week 6 showdown in Houston. As always, today’s post will review the injuries sustained in Sunday’s win.
Those ruled out prior to the game include S Micah Hyde (groin), S Rafael Bush (shoulder), and RB Marcus Murphy (ribs). Hyde and Bush were not expected to play this week after not practicing all week and their availability may improve with this week’s practice. However, Murphy was inactive despite practicing in full all week and demonstrating that he was healthy. There is precedent for the Bills to rule a player inactive despite appearing healthy. Just the prior week, CB Phillip Gaines was ruled inactive with an elbow injury despite practicing in full. These may be personnel decisions or may be allowing these players to heal up more before rushing back to full contact.
Those injured during the game were minimal included P Corey Bojorquez (shoulder), CB Taron Johnson (shoulder), CB Tre’Davious White (ankle), and DT Kyle Williams (knee). However, only White made his way to the injury report. Possibly the most serious injury out of the bunch is Bojorquez. He suffered a right shoulder injury on a botched fake field goal attempt and sustained an unlikely injury in the process. He was observed later having had the shoulder wrapped with limited motion during running and in obvious pain at times. Based on the mechanism of injury, it appears that he may have suffered a SLAP lesion of the shoulder. SLAP stands for Superior Labral Anterior and Posterior which means that the top portion of the labrum tears; this is where the long head tendon of the biceps connects at.
Bojorquez suffered the shoulder injury late in the 2nd quarter as the result of the tackle and came up with significant discomfort. The reason why this is at least a SLAP lesion or subluxation and not dislocation is due to the fact that he was able to move his shoulder around and did not appear to require immediate manual reduction of the joint. This injury occurred as he was tackled; his arm was in an abducted and externally rotated position which places a lot of stress on the front part of the shoulder. This is also the motion that is required to throw a football.
As he is falling with his arm in that position, he has a defender falling on his body, preventing him from falling to allow him to brace for impact. When Bojorquez hits the ground, the body weight of the defender plus the ground lead to the arm to hyperflex which possibly led to the SLAP tear. During impact, it is also possible that he may have suffered an anterior subluxation of the shoulder, which is a partial dislocation to the area but able to self relocate. However, of all subluxations/dislocations, this is the most common with 97% of all these injuries occurring in this manner. In dislocations, the labrum tears and leads to instability in the shoulder. In the case of subluxation, there is a joint shift but a lesser chance of injury to the labrum. However, in most dislocations/subluxations, damage does occur and instability is present. This is also evident in SLAP lesions.
Symptoms seen with Bojorquez after the injury would most likely include difficulty with overhead motions, general strength deficits, and complaints of popping, locking, or clicking during movement, among other complaints. As with labral tears, this is not an injury that will heal up on its own and would require surgery to repair the damage. A normal person could live with this injury without surgery but due to the demands of the NFL, he would most likely require surgery later.
Despite this grim prognosis, Bojorquez may not miss any time or have any deficits come next game. He will have to strengthen the area and give it time to reduce pain and weakness, but otherwise he will be able to perform his regular punting duties as required. Thankfully he is not out of the field often and he can still play with his full ability without compensation. The only major deficit he may have is if the Bills want to run a fake field goal play; this may limit his abilities to throw the football effectively. He may eventually need surgery if it continues to give him problems but will not require it immediately; he may use bracing as seen with CB Taron Johnson.
Unfortunately, following with another shoulder injury, CB Taron Johnson suffered a re-aggravation to the right shoulder, as he has had in previous games. He did have to sit out several plays after but was able to return with overall effective play. He will have to continue to tackle with his left side to reduce further injury and missed time. While he continues to injure the area, this can and will lead to less forces required to sublux the shoulder, leading to greater instability and eventual surgery.
DT Kyle Williams suffered a right knee injury in the 3rd quarter but eventually resumed participation. Williams did return to his place in the rotation after sitting out 1-2 series but based on the injury, does not appear to be serious. Williams injured his knee as the result of having his right leg kicked out from under him which resulted in him falling directly on his knee without bracing for impact. This may have been more of falling directly on it and requiring some rest to reduce the initial shock of the impact. While Williams is on the injury report, he is listed as requiring a veteran rest day as he does every week. I do not see this injury causing any long term issues.
Finally, CB Tre’Davious White suffered an ankle injury during Sunday’s win and was limited in practice today. Reviewing film, there was not one specific play that revealed the injury. Add in the fact that White played in every defensive snap and all defensive field goal attempts makes this difficult to diagnose. This may have been an injury that he played through and did not realize until after the game or this may have been an injury that he sustained in practice today. Without conclusive video, it is rather difficult to identify what type of ankle injury he sustained. Either way, he was only limited in practice which on Wednesday is a good sign in order to play Sunday. Based on this information alone, this does not appear to be a serious injury but something that the Bills should be proactive about. This is far from a guarantee, but history serves us well when looking at availability.
This wraps up the injury review from Sunday. The Bills continue to be fortunate when dealing with injuries in terms of severity. While some of these injuries are significant in nature, they are able to be conservatively managed until there is a more opportune time to address the long term management of these conditions.
Continue to check back for the latest updates and news coming out of One Bills Drive. Follow on Facebook at Banged Up Bills, on Twitter @BangedUpBills, on Reddit at u/BangedUpBills, and online at www.bangedupbills.com. As always, thank you for reading and GO BILLS!!
Pingback: PLAYOFFS? WOOD SAYS 2018 BILLS A LOT LIKE 2017 – 716sportspost