The Indianapolis Colts defense was dealt a serious blow after cornerback Vontae Davis suffered a nasty ankle sprain that is likely to keep him off the field for the first part of the season.
The Colts and injuries seem to have a relationship that will never end. Every single year the team ranks in the bottom of the league in games lost to injury. The latest, and most devastating, has been to Vontae Davis who could be out until October with a medial ankle sprain.
The medial ligaments run on the inside of your leg and spraining them is less common than that of the lateral ligament, which run on the outside. When you “roll your ankle” that is how you sprain your lateral ligaments.
Injury experts have weighed in on the Davis injury and how long the Colts can expect him to be out. Over at ESPN, Stephania Bell spoke with Mike Wells about the difference between ankle sprains:
"“This is not your typical ankle sprain. Medial sprains are less common, for sure,” Bell said. “If you’re standing and you rolled your ankle so that the inside of the sole of your foot is pointing out and the inside of your ankle is rolling like it is going to go in and touch the ground, that’s how you stretch the medial side of the ankle. It’s an injury to the ligaments on the inner side of that ankle. I can’t put a definite timetable on it because I don’t how much damage was done.”“Sometimes guys will get a cast to immobilize the ankle,” Bell said. “They want to keep it from moving. They put it there because they just want to get whatever is injured to scar down and they want to minimize the chance they’re going to move it so that you don’t aggravate any damage you have.”"
Wells spoke earlier this week about Davis being in a cast, which surprised some injury experts in the field.
Reports that Vontae Davis wearing a cast -- not a walking boot, but a cast -- are very unusual.
— Will Carroll (@injuryexpert) August 22, 2016
A cast would normally make treatment more difficult, but it seems necessary in this situation according to Bell. The cast sounds like a method to promote healing so the trainers can move on to rehab more quickly.
Vontae Davis has Grade II sprain but no fracture, per source. Denies anything unusual about injury or treatment.
— Will Carroll (@injuryexpert) August 23, 2016
Over at the IndyStar, Zak Keefer spoke with Kenneth Jung, a foot and ankle surgeon at Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles. He went into more detail on the nature of the injury and how important the severity of it is to his recovery.
"“Even though it’s called a sprain, it definitely can behave differently than your common ankle sprain,” Jung said. “A sprain means some tearing of the ligament. With this type of injury, it’s all based on the severity of the tear.”“If it was a small tear, he probably wouldn’t be in a cast.”The worst-case scenario for the Colts would be if Davis’ ligament is slow to heal, or heals in an unstable position, according to Jung.“That would require surgery,” he said. “And that would mean you put in all this time waiting for it to heal and you still don’t get the results you want. Essentially you’d have to restart the clock.”"
The Colts can ill-afford to lose Davis for an extended amount of time. He is arguably the best player on the defense and was integral to the team’s success two years ago. Davis is also a perfect fit for the type of man-coverage defense that coach Chuck Pagano likes to run.
While Davis doesn’t have a history of missing games due to injury (just one in the past three seasons), he does have issues with injuries lingering for awhile and hampering his abilities. He is understandably frustrated with the recent development.
“It sucks because I’ve been durable my whole career,” Davis said. “This ain’t something that’s going to have me out for the whole season or anything. I’ll be back.”
The Colts need this to be on the short end of the recovery scale. But if it is between an effective Davis later in the year and one that’s rushed back, they’ll take an effective Davis every time.