15 Injured Players to Buy or Sell in 2024 Fantasy Football (w/ Stephania Bell)

Fantasy Injuries w/ Stephania Bell on today's show we're going to discuss 14 of the most important injury situations you need to know for the 2024 fantasy football season that includes players who sustained serious injuries last season plus the camp injuries we've already had this year quick reminder a lot of what we're going to talk about today is related to back weighted fantasy production guys getting healthy ramping up down the stretch that production of course is far more valuable to us than early season production let's get into it with the Nick Chubb top 14 injuries for the 2024 pH football season let's start with number one Nick chub now this one is a little bit complicated to me tore his ACL MCL and meniscus on September 18th of last season ended up having two surgeries which they claimed was normal Stefania but always scares me two surgeries they said one was to repair the MCL and meniscus and then another to repair the ACL on top of that the reason I think it's confusing to me is this is the same knee he blew out in 2015 although that one wasn't the ACL it was MCL PCL LCL so thoughts on Nick chub here the two surgeries the fact it's the same knee anything else you think on Nick chub here yeah he has now successfully injured all the cl's in your knee the same knee I uh this one you know all injuries make me sad people used to ask me if I rooted for injury which is stupidest question on earth like they're like oh you know job security and I said if you watch football for any period of time you understand that injuries are inherent in the game so there's no I'm never rooting for players to get hurt but we know it's going to happen it's a collision sport they're going to happen uh but there are times where an injury takes my breath away and I get this overwhelming sadness and that's what happened when Nick chub got hurt last year um I believe it was MGA Fitzpatrick's helmet that went into his knee and it was just an unfortunate situation where physics do not allow for the knee to go backwards and uh when you see something like that happen you know the knee is going to fail but you just don't know how much damage is going to happen and then knowing that he had the injury that you referenced when he was at Georgia and knowing how much damage there was that time I rarely worry about a guy's career on on a single injury and I immediately did for Nick chub because of that so um just for people who might not be aware when he had that multi-gate injury in Georgia that could have been the end of his football career but he rehabbed incredibly hard and if you know the work ethic of Nick chub that doesn't surprise you but what's amazing is he came back and posted two consecutive thousand yard rushing seasons and got himself drafted in the NFL and people then sort of forgot with how well he performed in the NFL that he had this massive me inury so fast forward to him being the lone bright spot on the Browns offense for a number of years and a guy who I think think might be the most beautiful pure runner in the NFL I mean if you just in terms of the old school running backs and if you really just like to watch a guy who's powerful but Glides um Nick chub is that way and it's interesting because I often ask running backs when I'm talking to them when I go to training camps and different places that I visit or do interviews who they admire in the league and universally Nick j is near the top of everyone's list so so when he got hurt last year having a second knee dislocation on that same knee uh you really wonder like what's the Integrity of the joint going to be like and the first thing you worry about is cartilage damage because when you lose cartilage you can't replace it I mean there are procedures if you have a focal meaning a very specific size certain Dimension because can't be too big leion there are cartilage replacement procedures but they're not perfect it doesn't match your um you're never quite the same and even though you've had good outcomes and some return to play and that's really even a separate conversation but that's like a Raheem moster surgical repair where you have a focal lesion that's fixed but when you have blowouts of your knee you risk massive trauma to the cartilage so that was my number one concern then knowing he had all the ligament damage um and you wonder what else is because you got blood vessels and just other soft tissue that that's in there and then you know we started hearing about the damage and they thought initially maybe his ACL wasn't torn and the reason I'm explaining all this is it sets up for why the the surgery was potentially staged because when they went in to do the first part they could really visualize what the knee looked like and I think that's when they knew okay we're gonna have to fix this ACL um and we're going to start by doing this component first see how he does and then go forward the AC a little bit later it's not uh routine but it's not abnormal to do that and there's a lot of factors that go into creating that decision so I don't think anyone should think it was it was it was bad I mean it was definitely something that you can understand why that decision was made um very good surgeon um Dr V who's the surgeon head team physician for the Cleveland Browns Dr James F so um then it's wait and see and I think what people need to understand is when you have a second uh massive surgery on knee like that usually your recovery is slower you want to take more caution with the knee you want to be a little bit more conservative in how you bring an athlete back for all the reasons that you would expect and so while we look at an ACL timeline as being 9 to 12 months when you consider the fact surgery was staged that he had massive damage that it was the second injury to that knee you would expect them to naturally go a bit slower and does it mean that it's going to fall outside of the 12mon window not necessarily but he's a guy you're not going to be aggressive with there's no push to get him back and the Browns have basically told us this right no timeline I mean we had the general manager coming out and saying yep you know pump the brakes because the videos the viral videos of Nick chub lifting weights bars bending and everybody's like oh he he's good he's coming back but that's not football and every player will tell you it's different when you're playing football against an actual real defense and as a running back or you're the focal point of the defense or if you're Nick chub and you have four or five guys hanging on to you to try and bring you down the way you're loading that knee you can't replicate it outside of the game so I I did want to ask about that video do you think it matters at all that he squatted 585 lbs on his knee or that's just nonsense that people see on social media because that sent his average draft position up like literally two rounds just that one video I think the reason it does it is because people don't have anything else to watch to see evidence that he's actually doing well right so in your mind you go well anybody who could squat that kind of weight is clearly not a guy who's limping around in brace or tentative on his KN like it starts inserting other ideas right like oh well if he can if he can squat 600 pounds then what's there to worry about and that's where I would just remind people it's not football it's awesome it tells you he's strong Nick chub's legs before the injury were super strong you need that strength back but strength is only one component of what you need uh we have had a massive over underweight position on Nick chub in other words we have been way behind Market on Nick chub through this entire process one of our concerns not just that when will he be back but part of what made him good or most of what he made him good was this like historic efficiency like Stef talked about if he goes from one of the most efficient running backs in the league to a League average in efficiency or something like that it's a problem because he does not a pass catcher so I I feel the volume yeah right volume exactly right they're not necessarily I mean Nick chub was the predominant Workhorse in that offense always um and even when he was sharing back with Kem hunt in those days he was still the lead yeah and you can't assume when somebody's coming off an injury like this no matter who they are no matter if it's awesome incredible Nick chub you don't just plunk him down and say okay here you go you're the lead Back and You're Gonna you know touch the ball 20 22 times in a game um you there there's all this acclamation to the actual sport and I talk about this all the time my colleagues get annoyed but there's return to play versus return to Performance so part of what we call the Final Phase of rehab is return to play because that means all the restrictions are off and you're being allowed to actually put yourself into the sport so that your body can readjust to the sport re acclimate get the reactions back all of that but the only way to to to get that last phase of rehab is to actually do it and you're usually not performing at your peak level for a while after that yeah for sure for sure and yeah I think we're on the same page with Nick chub it is not a clean we'll get to some clean ACL tears it is not a clean one people are like oh but what about Bree Hollen we'll get to ACLS that were more like that than Nick chubar let's go to Story number two which was TJ Haw can I just say one more thing there go ahead yes because I was at Browns camp and so I chatted with Jerome Ford and he's definitely preparing I mean they love Nick chub they they really they have so much respect for him in that room um and the culture of the Browns has been just so heavy on on the on the ground game um so but I think they all respect and admire him and his presence is definitely there I definitely got the sense that Jerome Ford is preparing he will be the lead guy initially I have no doubt about that and it's a question of I think people assume like Nick chub's around the corner and and just don't confuse him potentially being activated with when he might return to play like I I just want people to understand I think this is really gonna be heavily Jerome Ford who you can get for quite a value in most fantasy drafts right now oh yeah um until and and again even when Nick chub comes back there's some proof there in terms of you know not only performance and efficiency but volume for sure yes drone for will certainly remain involved I think even if Nick chub does make it back all right number two story is TJ hackinson now this was TJ Hockenson an ACL and MCL tear not PCL not meniscus just ACL and MCL for hackinson it was just very late in the season January 29th surgery for TJ hackinson thoughts on his outlook for yeah so he he's one of those that went you know sometimes with the MCL injury they want to wait on doing the ACL because it's in a position where it can heal on its own but they want to give it that time and that's what happened with him so hence the late start to the surgery I mean I was also at Vikings and Kevin oconnell was talking about how great hackinson looks I saw him coming out to watch parts and practice um and he said you know you watch him run and they know like the Temptation is there like oh he looks so good but well conell is a smart guy and he's also like I I get it like he's running and that's one thing he's just running on the field and he looks good but all the stuff that comes back with ACL which is the agility and the sense of where you are in space and being able to dig your foot into the ground and pivot and uh if you're a big guy like T.J hackinson to be able to tolerate the weight of all these different people coming at you so um I think with the Vikings giving him the contract they did knowing how they want to use him the expectation is that he will be back this season but I don't think he's gonna be there at the beginning I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't see him for over a month in remember that sweet spot is right around 9 to 12 months and as you said surgery in January so you can sort of do the math it doesn't mean that it's required that it's that amount of time but the Vikings aren't interested in moving him up unnecessarily yeah yeah I think you know late October November sounds more realistic for T.J hackinson to me all Jonathon Brooks right let's keep him moving here to a rookie Jonathan Brooks now all I can find on Jonathan Brooks I think it was clean you might know better I think it was clean just ACL this was on November 11th we have a surgery date of December 5 on Jonathan Brooks here does it matter that he's so young like it does it matter when you're rehabbing an ACL a that he's so young and B that obviously it matters if it was just an ACL so yeah any more thoughts on Jonathan Brooks here it does matter in the sense of like we all feel better when we're younger everything's easier when we're younger I can 100% vouch for that but uh you know there there is something if people are wondering well what about about the older gu is like there is something if you've had certain injuries before and you sort of know the drill and there's they're may be a little bit less apprehensive because they've been through stuff before but um it's interesting because Jonathan Brooks when I saw him at the combine I was really watching like just how does he look how comfortable is he walking around a lot of people crowded he wasn't working out at the combine but um and I what this is funny I don't think I've shared this before so you're getting a little but I saw him at the combine and you know players come to the podium at different stations so they can talk to the media and then he went to the back there's like a middle section he went up I think to do like another media segment and he was standing and of course I'm a lot of times watching these guys because that's what I do I stare and I'm looking at how are they move and is there anything I'm gonna pick up and he was standing like on the edge of a studio spot and he slipped off it and my heart immediately is thinking oh my God here he is Fresh Off The ACL but he slipped and he caught himself you know was just it was only about six inches but you know if you step backwards off of something it doesn't matter if it's not high and I just all in that moment I got to process him stepping off sight unseen and catching himself and he did it it didn't like nothing didn't phase him and I was like that is a good sign like little things like that register well with me so I do think everything you're hearing about is recovery makes a lot of sense to me I will tell you this there was a study that was done um a while back combine players entering the combine who had a history of an ACL tear this I think was published in 2019 and if you uh came into the combine post ACL surgery not necessarily like fresh off of it but if you'd had one in your history you had a 25% chance of suffering a second ACL injury on either side within 22 months um of entering the league and that is compared to like a 9% chance for guys with no history of an ACL te so there is a bump up in Risk uh that we don't exactly know all the reasons that exist but it just does a as a 21y old who um is only had a clean ACL tear I think the outlook for Jonathan Brooks Stefania saying is cleaner than it is for other guys my concern on Jonathan Brooks is more the other stuff the team related stuff this is a team that is not a Super Bowl Contender not a playoff cont Ender in my opinion bad offensive line what is the motivation for the Panthers to bring him back and start giving him 20 touches a game now the Jets did it with Bree Hall last year I mean they were dusted out of it and they were still giving Bree Hall huge workloads down the stretch I know that's not an injury question it's just just a thought I have on Jonathan Brooks I just want to say I am the outlier here everyone at ETR except for me Stefania is in on Jonathan Brooks big time no I'm with I'm with you and it's for what you're saying but also the danger is sometimes these kids look really good and so the Temptation is to give them too much work and the biggest even though I gave you that stat about the risk of a secondary ACL injury that's not really the biggest risk with these the biggest risk is some other compensatory soft tissue injury uh in the aftermath we see hamstring strains all the time sometimes it's a groin injury sometimes it's a an ankle sprain or something else more often than I a hamstring injury why because everybody focuses on their quad strength coming back from these hamstrings often aren't quite as inbalance nor are they ready for deceleration and deceleration ends up causing some of the some of these injuries it's the basically the co-function of the quads and the hamstrings and they end up with a deficit um and it's it's really um I I said deceleration but it's also acceleration too there's actually both I I'm getting I could get a little more in the Weeds on it but you know those catap the Catapult data that people collect the censor data when they're looking at volume of work it's through looking at things like that that some of the rehab folks are starting to recognize where the deficits are post ACL and I think that's why you've seen the timeline get pushed out a little bit but every so often a team gets excited when a player comes back and looks good and they can't help themselves and they give the athlete more work on the field than they probably are ready for and then they end up tweaking something and that sets them back yeah I mean Canalis had a quote along the lines of we love this kid he's going to be part of our team for a long time he's an awesome player you know they're not going to rush him back I feel pretty confident in that let's go to good for him not great for Fantasy correct uh number four here is another clean ACL tear Mike Williams tore his Mike Williams ACL on September 24th like I said looks like a clean ACL tear he will turn 30 in October of this year now the Jets have said he's on the Bree Hall plan the Bree Hall plan was active for week one but limited active for week two and week three and week four not full workload and then they just started going nuts on even when they were out of it it was like forget it Bree Hall go play every snap go get 25 touch in the game which was awesome because I had a bunch of Bree Hall but man I was actually surprised the way they played it down the stretch but anyways at 30 years old do you have a different outlook on Mike Big Mike Williams here for the Jets it's interesting I just sat with him yesterday so you're getting this fresh off I was at Jets camp and I chatted with him for about 15 minutes after practice and uh the thing about Mike Williams is he's had some injuries that have been pretty significant so he understands that he has to be really ready to play the style of game that he plays and I asked him specifically about contested catch I mean he's very physical in the red zone and that means you've got to be able to go up in the air and land potentially on that leg blind and have confidence that it's going to support you when you land and he said to me and I you know I'm the BT I I know this and this is what you're usually saying to the athlete but he said to me there's only one way to get that those reps and that confidence and that's you know in-game stuff and until you're doing it he's like I can't wait to go against a Defender right now he's still doing individual work as you and I are recording this he's not even doing team drills yet um but he knew that the only way to get that back is that there's going to be some rehab through getting comfortable in a game uh playing against Real Defenders who want to take you out and the story he shared with me was that um because I asked him you know I said it's hard sometimes guys are nervous they're apprehensive when they're coming back from this and he goes yeah well it he goes I already came back from a broken neck and I was reminded that he fractured his neck when he was a Clemson and he said when he first came back he was like oh okay I got this and he said he went up for a ball and these like Defenders were trying to take him out like no respect for the fact that he was coming back from a neck fracture so he's like I know what that's like on the one hand the great part is if you come back from a broken neck you're probably not going to be so apprehensive about an NL but also he understands like that's the part that you need to overcome and that takes different amount of time for different guys so I think he's doing really well in his progression he's not wearing a brace looks good moving but it's just him moving on air right now yeah I mean it's an interesting spot for Mike Williams if he can still play if he can be himself off this ACL teer the Jets need him I mean badly the Jets need him they do not have much behind Garrett Wilson in the pass catcher Department all right let's get to the old Rodgers/Cousins quarterback Achilles injuries now I am 41 almost 42 I feel like I'm going to blow out my kid I wake up with these like sore achilles and then I try to go play basketball or tennis I'm just like so sure I'm gonna pop it especially after might be you're at the prime age we used to call it middle-aged man syndrome in that's what I was gonna say especially after 36y old Kurt Cousins and 41y old almost 41y old Aaron Rogers did it last season I was like my God I I I can't even take this now play pickle ball pretty much that's the setup for it there's so many of the rise in Achilles injuries because of pickle ball is incredible I still try to pretend that I am tough and only play tennis not pickle ball however I get it uh Kirk KES kurk cousins had his Achilles surgery on November 11th Aaron Rogers was much earlier he went down on opening night with his Achilles rupture the crazy thing to me is I used to think Achilles was like the worst thing ever no one can come back from it guys are coming back from it faster now but even these old guys I guess as Statue quarterbacks it's not as big a deal I did see a video of Kirk Cousins like doing a six-yard scramble a couple weeks ago at practice uh what is going on here so is it really not that severe for these old quarterbacks do you think that there is any fear of aggravation on them or is it just like it's always been they're going to stand in the pocket and try to throw Kurt Cousins and Aaron Rogers and I think this is one area where uh the surgical proced procedure and the rehab from it have both evolved in a way that allows for better return to function I mean it's much better if you saw cam Acres playing that preseason game I mean he's now torn to Achilles and I thought he looked pretty good the way he was moving used to be a death sentence for a running back for sure and most players weren't coming back um but now the way that they do these procedures um you know some still do a a bigger more broad open incision but um they're a couple foot Specialists who do what they call a mini open little tiny incision so less Scar Tissue less chance of infection all of that means better smoother healing um it's also the way that they can secure the repair H the way they suture it the materials they're using that less scar is really important because if you could look if you if you're interested in this kind of thing you can go look at a picture like Google a picture of an Achilles and the calf mus you can just see the lines like it's all in line and if you think about what that tendon does it it stretches you know it loads energy and then when you push off it stretches out and bounces back and if when you have scar it's very disorganized like it lays down in all kind of funky ways and that doesn't allow for this smooth stretch and release of a tendon imagine if you can minimize the scar and basically shape it in a way that allows the functionality of the tendon to be improved maybe you do get that explosiveness and that push and that spring back a little bit better plus your healing time is a little bit less and I think we just understand that there's more to do in rehab now um it's just gotten far more expansive in terms of what you can do to promote soft tissue healing and Progressive loading the things that Aaron Rogers was doing in rehab he had a very specific rehab remember he was trying to get back very quickly yeah but the way they were measuring out in very small amounts okay you can do this much more today and then how does that how does it react to that and then maybe this little bit more the next day and it's just so much more complex than people can imagine and those things all together are allowing these guys to get back so Aaron Rogers who was targeting late last season ends up with all this extra time which means the tendon only has that much more time to continue to repair and remodel itself and get stronger he looked like he was moving around fine to me uh the number the ones were working predominantly yesterday because the twos and threes you know played in a lot of the games get more rest he looked fine like he looks like he's a little older guy he's not moving as quick as he used to when he was in his 20s but there's no there there's nothing visible where you'd go oh yeah he's hurting and I imagine Kurt Cousins is the same yeah we have no docks on either of those guys feel pretty good on that all right let's get JK Dobbins to the bionic man Jake K Dobbins now I have a checkered history with JK Dobbins I tweeted some skepticism a couple years ago oh he'll he'll find you oh he found me he found me and he uh replied and and quote tweeted me so we're now close personal friends but anyways since that incident and by the way that inent I was referring to was he was coming off of ACL LCL miniscus in August of 2021 that one was a mess I mean he was out there in late 2022 like dragging his leg around but still being productive somehow anyways makes it back on the field but September 20 23 last season now he blows out his Achilles I honestly thought at that point like I felt bad for him you know like I felt like his his career was completely over Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman want to install some crazy run heavy attack and they have pegged 32-year-old Gus Edwards and The Bionic Man JK do the guys to do it with so something is off here either we're wrong and JK do is gonna be fine or the charges are wrong and they have a big problem so what do you think about JK dobins this one I mean listen I am at a bit of a loss here myself because of exactly what you meant like the room right the room like the two guys it makes sense like okay you want guys you can plug into your offense and because Greg Roman knows Gus and JK is so well and that you know it fits with what Harbaugh wants to do scheme wise you're like okay if everything goes well these guys are gonna be a perfect fit but then I think about well what does the volume of work look like like it's one they they're gonna be able to execute it and you know like JK's recovery he's documented while he was rehabbing with Aaron Rogers so same place again I can't say enough about the rehab process um same surgeon as Aaron H so they were really you know rehabing in parallel there um but it it's still like can he look good for a couple of runs but what happens when you're giving them the ball over and over and how much work are they willing to give him and this is where I don't know uh because remember back when you're the time period you're were talking about when he was coming off the ACL he was adamant about getting back week one and I I felt badly for him a bit there because I understand that these guys have all this attention on them and there's these markers they feel they have to hit like get back for the beginning of the Season or it's a failure to get back but he would have benefited so much by having a little more time that I wonder if he wouldn't have looked better sooner if he had delayed his return and now I it's a little bit of a similar concern so I was at Chargers camp but he had a veteran day that day and that makes sense didn't worry me but I didn't really get to see him do anything um Gus Edwards they were managing from you know harbot doesn't talk about injuries or something undisclosed that Gus Edwards had comeon Vidal had you know he was doing limited work because of a hamstring I'm not convinced that they have really like a fully healthy room to start yeah so I am happy for JK that he feels as good as he does I know he's a guy who is always out to prove that people have been wrong about him uh you know this well but I just don't know what his volume of work looks like and I think it goes one in two ways one is he doesn't have enough to really equal what you think an rv1 should have and the other is that he does too much too soon and it ends up yeah taking a toll I will say he goes very late and I still haven't taken JK Dobbins at all but he does go very late like the opportunity cost is not that high I prefer him better in home leagues where we can see what he looks like if he looks great in week one great if not we can just drop him and move on obviously can't do that in beste ball so that that's one that I think is pretty clear for me in terms of best ball versus hom League let's get to Anthony Richardson number eight here Anthony Anthony Richardson Richardson had an a joint sprain which I've heard of Plenty I guess it was so bad he needed surgery now since then he's looked completely fine there was a video I tweeted of him dunking like some absurd like would have won the dunk contest dunk where he moves his shoulder in all kinds of crazy positions he's been out there uh at Camp played in the preseason game there's still a faction of the fantasy Community who just assumes Anthony Richardson is going to get hurt again this season but what do you think about the shoulder is or should we be worried about aggravation on such a rushing focused quarterback I was worried when I heard about the injury because it's tough on a thrower right if you don't get everything exactly right then that means every time you come over the top which where you're gonna stress that AC joint is it going to be problematic or you G have residual soreness pain whatever I gotta tell you uh I've been so impressed with his rehab which has been really pretty smooth you know um natural to have a little bit of soreness whether it's in your biceps or around that area as you're coming back um he's another one I was with with him in Jacksonville where he trains in July and I am here to tell you that the way he throws the ball there is like there's nothing missing on it I mean he throws that ball hard yeah he has no problems his movement um they were actually doing motion capture on him so you could see it 3D imaged all the way around like his follow through which is what I looked at because for AC joint repair a lot of times they don't want to come across their body as they're following through on throw he's got no issues so for him it's really about just um improving as a quarterback in the NFL we've already heard that they don't plan to limit his runs at all I think he understands like let's not let's be sensible about it it's not gonna stop him from being a runner yeah they had some quote that I thought it was a really good quote it was like you're not going to tell Steph Curry to shot stop shooting threes or something like that if you tell Anthony Richardson that he can't run he is not worth the fourth overall pick in the NFL draft you just you just can't do that I mean you can't play scared basically yeah and you can tell him that he needs to run out of bounds and I thought there was a play in the first preseason game where maybe last year he would have lowered his shoulder and tried to run over the I know what play you're talking about I saw and I thought the exact same thing so I feel good about Anthony Richardson again very small sample but did lead all quarterbacks and fantasy points per dropback lastas drop back and that to me that's a stat I've used over and over again because I'm like you can take that you know the sample size was what five games or something like that you can you can take that and still have it be meaningful when you look at those points per drop back because it's a relative score for sure all right number Justin Herbert nine here was an injury that happened during Camp Justin Herbert this was very early in Camp Justin Herbert diagnosed with a plantar fascia injury now rushing production from Justin Herbert isn't great but it's also not nothing 9911 yards 11 Rush touchdowns in 62 NFL games do you think a plantar fascia injury will affect Justin Herbert's mobility in the pocket or out of it this season so let me just start by saying I'm totally biased right now because I tore my medial band of my planter fascia like a few weeks ago oh I'm here to tell you it is one of the most painful injuries I've ever had in my life and I've taken care of a number of athletes with varying degrees of planter whether it's planter fasciitis or actually an acute rupture or partial tear you know it's a spectrum of injury it's not all one size fits off and they've tried to give me I mean the descriptions I still think Antonio Gates um going old school here had the best one when you talked about it's like when you take a knife and you stick it in hot butter it just cuts in I was like oh yeah or people talk about walking on broken glass and mine is that it feels like an ice pick is going into my heel when I take a step especially in the morning so now knowing that and knowing that as a quarterback forget the running you have to just stand on two feet to begin with and put your weight down on if it's painful it will be painful with every step so the key is can you get it to where it's manageable and not so painful that's why they put them in a boot for two weeks to try and take the stress off it elevates your heel so you're not putting all that stress through the arch um because your plan of fascia is basically the big the thick tissue on the bottom of your foot that supports your arch so every time you step step flat it stretches if you have a partial tear you're continuing to tug at the thing that is partially torn so you elevated it sometimes they'll cast guys if they really don't want them weightbearing they'll cast them for a week or two now sometimes that reprieve is enough to get over the acutely painful stage allow the tissue to start to scar in a little bit and you don't do too badly but if you step again you tear it a little more like it has the potential to be a lingering problem you may have heard people say you know it's better if you tear the whole thing versus a partial tear because well once you tear the whole thing there's nothing to tug at anymore that's going to cause pain now it's not great for the support of your arch and you risk having problems with your foot being flatter and down the line um but we don't know the degree of injury here and that's what makes it hard to project the other thing we know about Justin Herbert is super tough he's played through incredible pain before so do I think he's gonna miss time the way they have it set up no because he's a guy who plays through everything but to your point how effective can he be can he move in and around the pocket can he get if people are harassing him at his feet all the time is it GNA be a problem maybe yeah you know it it just we just really have no way of knowing if this is a pain tolerance thing can they just give him an injection before the game and he won't feel the pain and he'll be he'll be okay so it's really interesting because um you know you don't typically want to inject cortisone or into an area where you have that type of tissue because it will make it fail but I do know of times where cortisone injections have been given with partial tears or it's so close to a full rupture they're like number one it's going to make you feel better number two if it fully goes right then that's not a bad situation so um there can be I have talked to a couple Foot and Ankle docks who are doing some different things with what we call orthobiologics so some um you know PL rich plasma is an orthobiologic that's not what's used in this case but there are some other things that they're trying I know I've talked to a couple of um docs who treat NCAA athletes who have used it and gotten some success and getting them past the painful point and accelerating the healing so I think there are things to try uh but there's always that worry that you're going to aggravate it again during the season okay let's get to Deshaun Watson another quarterback here for number 10 Deshawn Watson now a lot of people want to blame all kinds of other things for the way deshun Watson has played when he's been on the field and maybe that's part of it you know got this absurd contract all the all field stuff maybe he doesn't want to play ball people have speculated all that stuff I think his shoulder looks like broken last season H his rotator tough in week three comes back in week seven never really seemed right seemed to hurt his shoulder again in week 12 diagnosis at that point was a displaced fracture to the glenoid in his shoulder I mean this seems like a something I never heard of before a really rare shoulder injury I don't even know what to make of this but I'm not that worried about the off field stuff I'm worried that his shoulder is like permanently broken and the Browns who gave him 230 million guaranteed are like well he better get out there because we have 230 million guaranteed you better get out there anyways so what's going on with deshun Watson well the good news and you're right to be alarmed because it's not an injury you hear of every day in a quarterback um but basically the glenoid is the socket so you know your your arm the shoulder is the ball here and it goes in on your shoulder blade has this round sort of flat you know surface kind of shaped like a saucer and that's where that's the glenoid and so when you have a fracture of it you need and it's displaced means it's out of position you have to realign the piece like putting little jigsaw puzzle pieces back in place and then securing them so the bone can properly heal so that was step one number two when you have a fraer like that the laum gets torn so you have to repair the labam we know we don't love laboral repairs and throwers because sometimes that starts changing their Arc of throwing so you know he had an excellent surgeon and Dr Neil elatos who has done these before and operates on baseball pitchers who have a much more demanding Arc of throwing than a quarterback and so the balance is stability you know you fix the problem you have to make that shoulder stable Again part of the reason he didn't look right it was fractured in there probably felt like it was slipping with the laborum Tor like you just can't effectively set up your throws no matter what so that's why he looked like nonfunctional had to get fixed but with when you are creating that stability you run the risk of compromising the motion so the the surgeon's challenge is how do you allow for normal motion to be able to throw and still give him stability at the joint and I think he's got that and I you know he's been throwing and throwing pretty well um he's another one where when it gets to volume that's what's going to be interesting like you know he's on a progression back that should have him ready so you know he's practicing he's doing the right stuff but a full workload of a game in addition to taking some shots to the shoulder that'll be where we see like how does he hold up yeah I mean with our inputs not assuming that he's hurt he's a pretty good value for us because we expect the Browns to switch to a more throw heavy attack without Nick chub and because he gave you good rushing stuff you know last year I mean did run 26 1421 in just five games so if Deshawn Watson is right and the shoulder is right I actually think he's probably a good value like said we're going to have to see on on workload I think for deshun Watson let's get us a couple quick ones here from Camp Maris Brown dislocated Marquise Brown the SC joint in the preseason Opener Report is four to six weeks on Maris Brown everybody seems to be saying 4 to6 weeks on this do you think when he comes back on that 46 week T timetable we should be concerned at all or is he good to go after that 46 week I think you know the thing for him is he's gonna have to get hit and fall down again and know that it feels okay because the big thing about it is it's uncomfortable it could be super painful um the SC is where your sternum your chest bone and your clavicle your collar bone meat and the thing is when you dislocate it can go forward or backward and if it goes backwards it's going towards the most important blood vessels in your body and that's why they take you to a hospital they have to image it and Cat Scan is usually what you need to really see it properly uh they have to reduce it if it's dislocated because it doesn't necessarily just pop back in on itself uh Andy Reed said he didn't need surgery you can you can reduce a dislocation like that closed where meaning they don't have to cut through the skin but there are other times where they do so fact no surgery good but then you've got to immobilize the arm for a while usually it's a sling because you when you move your arm you're moving that joint which is why it's considered part of the shoulder um so you have to be in a sling and allow these ligaments and everything to scar down again so that it's stable because what you don't want is something that's moving around and flimsy because the risk of severe injury from that is with contact is the problem once you get to a point where you're comfortable that it's stable it tissue is healed it's at no further risk than it was you know before you had the big injury then really he should be ready to go it shouldn't change his function it's just the mental aspect of coming back Tyreek Hill actually had this um don't know you know again scale of severity Direction all of that we don't have that information but Tyreek Hill came back and he was just fine yeah I mean the Rashid rice stuff is super interesting now because we still haven't heard about the suspension there's Rumblings out there he may not be suspended much if at all this season and then you get the Mars Brown injury on top of this so we've really moved up rasir rice pretty strongly in the ranks another training camp injury was Josh DS diagnosed with a Josh Downs high ankle springing in practice last week these high ankles I mean I feel like Austin Eckler's whole season last year was ruined by a high ankle I remember saquan had one he tried to play through and was a mess Jerry Judy had a whole season that he tried to play through wrecked by a high ankle I I don't want that I don't want that to happen to Josh downs but it seems like it's just inevitable like these guys don't recover from high ankles fast enough any more thoughts on Josh DS and high ankles I mean I think all your observations are good ones it's just a tough injury to recover from from and again there's there's degrees of severity with these and a really the most significant ones require surgery and the very mild ones will do pretty well with being immobilized in a boot um again occasionally they'll cast them for a couple days but most of the times it's a boot and then they rehab back and they they come back and those do pretty well but it's everything in between that's hard because if it's enough that there's some instability but not so much that you would automatically go to surgery then you're really in the wait and see mode and you have to make sure it's going to be ready for you to return and these especially when they happen in season or close to the season guys are trying to push to come back and it might be a little on the early side and the problem is every with the high ankle it's the ligaments that that basically form the roof of the ankle so it's where your two lower leg bones come together right above where you think of your traditional ankle so as the ankle moving in the joint when you step down it normally would put a gapping stress on those two lower leg bones well when the ligaments are intact they're not going anywhere but if you damage the ligaments with a high ankle sprain you basically get an increased separation of the two lower leg bones so imagine feeling that every time you step and that those bones are like spreading apart that doesn't feel good and it not only is it painful or can be painful it feels nasty and unstable and guys can't rotate because the rotation increases that stress so directional change um you know landing and cutting those things are really hard when you come back from a high ankle sprain I feel like if they called it something else people would take it more seriously because people are like oh it's a high ankle it's an ankle sprain don't be soft get back out there but this is like really severe so we have I think it's because of just that they don't understand like where it is and what it does that makes it different from like a basketball ankle spring for sure yeah so pretty worried about Josh Downs here we have him very significantly even though it sounds like he'll likely be back sometime in September other training camp injury DeAndre Hopkins this was very early in Camp just out of nowhere knee strain for Deandre Hopkins DeAndre Hopkins out four to six weeks now they did say he won't need surgery I haven't seen any other details on this this guy is 32 years old with a knee strain out four to six weeks here in August I'm a look queasy on DeAndre Hopkins at this point Stefan are you worried about him yeah mostly because of what we don't know with the telling us which they don't have to I mean that's the luxury of training camp is they really don't have to give us much and uh the thing about timetables in training camp is they're hard to gauge because um you don't know teams start getting really conservative because you're not bringing a guy like DeAndre Hopkins a season veteran who remember when he was at Texas he would not practice a lot during the week and he would show up and play as tail off right and there was never any question about his productivity but he was sort of always banged up well now you add that he is you know x amount older now they're not going to bring him back so was it was it really A four to six week injury maybe maybe they're being super conservative knowing if they push the timeline out there um into week one or two it allows him to sort of see how he's doing it's just a hard one to gauge because there's no detail around it for sure last one I Puka Nacka had on the list before today was Puka nikua Puka nikua in a joint practice a couple Sundays ago hurt his knee McVey has been honest mostly on injuries he didn't seem to express much concern called it a burst Bursa sack and called puka week to week but did say it won't affect his preparation for week one we initially docked puka Naka in the rankings and move Cooper cup up some we've backed off that a little bit and now have puka aaan middling it where do you think puka will be at come week one yeah I think he'll be ready to go week one they got a great rehab staff out there I think this whole week to week like I think that's exactly right and mcfay like you said was so honest I actually referenced that on a show today I'm like we love when at least I do like you give me the details about it then I could say okay yeah I I sort of agree with you I think they were very transparent it's a time of year where he doesn't have to push it so um yeah you don't love a guy getting hurt puka played through a lot of stuff like he got banged up a lot last year I don't know if people remember there were a couple times were like is he gonna make it through the game you know he was he was definitely playing hurt um and he's big so it's G to happen but uh I'm not overly alarmed by this okay the one that JJ McCarthy happened today mere hours before we came on to this very prestigious podcast was Vikings rookie JJ McCarthy hurts his knee goes for an MRI couple days later has a miniscus injury there's a lot of docs out there that think they're uh a lot of reporters out there who think they're Docs now St because they say that they can't give a timeline until they actually do the procedure to find out whether it's a trim or repair of the miniscus if it is indeed a repair JJ McCarthy allegedly will be out for the season what do you think about this whole JJ McCarthy situation yeah I mean that that's basically when you have a meniscus injury you know contrary to popular opinion because used to be people like oh miniscus so they'll be back in two to four weeks like everybody's got the automatic Tim table but just like anything else matters where it is you know what's the severity there's like if you open a a book on knee injuries and you were looking at the meniscus section you would see all these different patterns of Tears like they're not all alike and there's parts of the meniscus that have a blood supply and there's parts that really don't and so if it's a section that really doesn't it's probably not going to heal well if you have a section where there's some blood vessel infiltration okay that has a better chance of healing all of those things things will factor into how they approach treating it when they get in there surgically and they can visualize it better when they get in there so that's where that comment is coming from when Kevin oconnell said they're going to decide when they go to surgery that's that's partly why maybe they they don't have the clearest image maybe they want to see is this something that we can do um you know X Y or Z that's fairly straightforward get him out and have it just be this this light like a de breed min menisectomy where you're taking out just a little piece or kind of Shaving something down the reason you want to do a repair if it's an injury that warrants a repair and is amenable to repair is because the meniscus serves a protective function in your knee joint and from the olden times when it was like oh it's torn we'll just take that out and they started studying people in followup years the the rate of advancement of arthritis in the joint is massive accelerated when you take out the meniscus so it has a critical function you don't want to just take a piece out a chunk out for no reason if it's going to be amenable to repair so look they've invested in this kid they're looking at him for the future if it warrants repair they will do it there is no rush to bring him back but that is multiple months of recovery and if he doesn't end up need needing a repair there's something that is very that's an easier fix if you will it doesn't mean they were trying to rush to get him back like they're gonna do what's in the best interest of JJ McCarthy here and so and so we wait and see what they discover in surgery if he ends up needing just the trim when do you think he could get back then it's a you know it's a pretty simple scope and you know we usually say two to four weeks but sometimes it takes a little longer depending on the swelling and how each person behaves but um and and again they wouldn't be rushing him and we never thought really that he was going to likely be the starter for the season so um you know then it's Miss time with practice Miss time missed reps and all of that so uh you know whether even if I said two to four weeks in terms of being cleared for football I don't think I think there's still a delay it further delays his initiation I mean even before all this we didn't think that he would make his debut until October or maybe November you know and so if he just needs the trim nothing nothing changes if he does need the full repair and he's out for the season though we are going to need to talk a bunch about Sam darnold because he will project very well for us with these weapons in this scheme I know nobody wants to hear it but that is the truth on Sam it is C I was just in Minnesota like I was just there the other day and uh so I got to watch both of them in practice and it was it was just really interesting and by the way JJ spoke to the media that day and I'm telling everyone who will listen like I saw him when Michigan was making their run I saw him afterwards he just said oh good kid like he seems too good to be true I am telling you when you are standing there in his presence and he's talking I was like I'm buying whatever he's like he is just this most authentic pure sweet kid and I devastated for him that this happened but he's really I mean I I think they just love him in the building because of who he is and so let him let him go forward at the pace that works for him and and Vikings fans can like the sky hasn't fallen you know Sam darnold I think could be capable in this offense as you mentioned and JJ will come back when he's ready all right we have said it all on 2024 fantasy football injuries I learned a ton hopefully you all did as well stefen you really appreciate the time let the people know where they can find you assuming you want to be found let them know where they can find you and where they can find your work yes on uh on the xplatform I still call I mean we when you put something on there it's a tweet right like still a tweet um stepore ESPN and then at Stefan Bell on Instagram where I well I'm gonna try and do some little informational videos more of this during the season because uh I know people are curious people always want more and more information so I'm going to try and do a little bit more of that but please watch us Sundays on fantasy football now when the regular season begins we do a three-hour pregame show every Sunday and as you mentioned at the top we're doing a preview fantasy football now on Monday as part of the fantasy football marathon it's actually on from 7 pm to 11 pm I don't know if we're gonna switch networks because there's a whole Little League World Series thing going on but either ESPN or ESPN2 one of the two from s to 11 I feel like they are always moving the show and the channel and the time on you guys if anyone at ESPN is listening this is what the people want this is what they want stop moving the channel stop moving the time let people get into routine of consuming fantasy content on ESPN Stephania didn't say it I did she would never cross her bosses like that all right that is going to do it for Stefania for producer Luke for producer Ryan I am Adam good luck everybody