Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Recovery seems to be right on track for Tua Tagovailoa as the NFL prospect works his way back from his season-ending hip injury.
Recovery seems to be right on track for Tua Tagovailoa as the NFL prospect works his way back from his season-ending hip injury.
New Orleans Saints defensive end Marcus Davenport was reportedly diagnosed with a Lisfranc injury after consulting with a specialist.
[jwplayer ZnzdqH8F-ThvAeFxT]
New Orleans Saints fans were struck with bad news on Tuesday evening when it was reported that second-year defensive end Marcus Davenport suffered a serious foot injury during Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers, and that the ailment was expected to require season-ending surgery.
On Wednesday, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport clarified that Davenport is dealing with a Lisfranc injury in his foot, which was diagnosed after he received a second opinion from Green Bay-based specialist Dr. Robert Anderson. Anderson performed the corrective surgery on Davenport’s turf toe injury after the 2018 season concluded, though it’s unclear whether he’ll be the doctor to treat Davenport after this Lisfranc issue.
So what is a Lisfranc injury? These issues strike the middle of the foot, hitting the long metatarsal bones that maintains the arch in the foot and allows people to push off and accelerate. It’s a painful condition that prevents those affected from putting weight on the injured foot, and is more common in football and rugby than, say, basketball or baseball.
The next question: how long will Davenport be out? According to a study completed before the 2018 NFL season, NFL athletes are typically sidelined for 10 months after surgery, give or take as much as three months. Every injury and every player is different, and their sample size was limited to 47 athletes (35 from football, and 12 from rugby). So some variance is to be expected.
It’s not realistic to expect the 6-foot-6, 265-pound Davenport to return as quickly as Baltimore Ravens rookie Marquise Brown, the 5-foot-9, 166-pound wide receiver who missed just seven months. A more comparable situation would be Washington Redskins defensive lineman Jonathan Allen (6-foot-3, 300 pounds), who went down with the same injury five weeks into his 2017 rookie season but returned in time for training camp — an absence of about eight months.
Davenport hasn’t had surgery yet, so there isn’t even a projected time table for his return in place. But precedent suggests he could miss a game or two to start the 2020 season, though things obviously could go better or worse depending on how his body responds to treatment.
Coincidentally, Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton spent most of the 2019 season trying to avoid surgery, but he went under the knife on Monday for an injury that’s comparable to what Davenport is experiencing. New York-based Dr. Martin O’Malley operated on Newton, and the Panthers don’t yet have any expectations of when Newton will be ready to play football again. His situation (and Davenport’s) illustrates just how common these kinds of injuries are in football, and how quickly things can escalate in such a physically-demanding game.
[lawrence-related id=24331,24340]
[vertical-gallery id=24148]
New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton saw plenty to like in their NFC South-clinching win over the Atlanta Falcons, but not on onside kicks.
New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton saw plenty to like in his team’s NFC South-clinching win over the Atlanta Falcons, but not on special teams. He watched with increasing irritation as the Falcons recovered three consecutive onside kicks in the game’s final moments, though the first was wiped out by an Atlanta penalty. Payton addressed the chronic problem during his postgame press conference.
“It’s not good. It’s embarrassing. We’ve got to get it cleaned up. It’s not the first time that this has happened now. We went through this (already),” Payton said, referencing similar issues in a game with the Chicago Bears earlier this season. Two of the Saints’ best pass-catchers, Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara, each failed to secure the live ball after it was kicked onside by Falcons specialist Younghoe Koo.
It’s obviously an area that Payton plans to emphasize in practice, continuing: “We’ve got to get that cleaned up. We’ve got to make sure we understand what we’re telling them. Clearly after one or two of them [onside kicks], you saw it wasn’t going very deep and we’re still lined up 10 yards behind the [line]…so we’ll get that cleaned up. That’s on us.”
Those late-game possession steals gave the Falcons hope in a game that shouldn’t have been so close. They turned those two drives into 15 more plays against the Saints defense, but to their credit New Orleans kept battling despite having logged 90-plus snaps in the game already. Of those 15 plays, the Falcons offense surrendered 5 sacks (one of them was nullified by a Saints penalty) and left with just 42 net yards from scrimmage.
That speaks to how talented this Saints team is. Even when one phase of the game breaks down (as the special teams unit did here), another group is ready and able to step up to secure the win. Once Payton and his staff get these issues cleared away, they just might be unstoppable.
Maybe he should try again to recruit retired coach Mike Westhoff, who shared a cup of coffee with the Saints back in August after serving as the team’s de facto special teams coordinator the last two years. Westhoff resumed his retirement after the Saints shook up their special teams staff during the offseason, hiring longtime Miami Dolphins coordinator Darren Rizzi and his assistants.
[vertical-gallery id=23493]
New Orleans Saints safety Vonn Bell recovered a fumble out of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, his fifth of the year, tying the lead.
The Atlanta Falcons may have just been snakebit on Thanksgiving night against the New Orelans Saints. Things just didn’t go there way in high-leverage situations, like on this third down midway through the fourth quarter.
Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan dropped back to pass, but none of his receivers were open thanks to tight coverage by the Saints defense. The pass rush bore down on him so he burst out of the pocket and jogged upfield for what should have been a first-down conversion.
Unfortunately for Ryan, he’s not as well-rounded an athlete as Saints defensive end Marcus Davenport, who chased after the fleeing quarterback before crashing down on him, jarring the football out of Ryan’s grasp. And who should be in the right spot to recover that fumble than Saints safety Vonn Bell?
Bell went into Thursday’s game tied with several other players for the second-most fumble recoveries in the NFL (4), trailing only Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson (5). Now that Bell recovered this fumble from Ryan, he’s tied Watson for the NFL’s lead, and he’s the only defensive player to do so.
This comes two weeks after Bell recorded his first career interception off of Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston, a day in which four different Saints defenders picked him off. If the Saints defense can continue making game-changing turnovers like these and cut down on a handful of mental errors, they’ll be able to compete against any unit in the lead.
When one man eats, EVERYBODY EATS 🍽#Saints #Saints #Saints pic.twitter.com/KYpwsJzNgs
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) November 29, 2019
[vertical-gallery id=23336]
The New Orleans Saints lost starting left guard Andrus Peat to a broken arm against the Atlanta Falcons, and he’s expected to miss six weeks
[jwplayer FXiwQx5O-ThvAeFxT]
Bad news hit the New Orleans Saints on Wednesday, with ESPN’s Adam Schefter reporting that left guard Andrus Peat suffered a broken arm in Sunday’s loss to the Atlanta Falcons. Peat went through surgery Wednesday and the team expects him to be sidelined for six weeks, per Schefter’s report. That would put him on the shelf until their Dec. 22 game with the Tennessee Titans.
It’s a big loss for the Saints. Despite his inconsistent level of play, Peat was their best option to start at left guard as well as the immediate backup for left tackle Terron Armstead. He’ll likely be replaced by his own backup, second-year pro Will Clapp, though free-agent signee Nick Easton should also be a candidate to get playing time. Easton has been a healthy scratch in six of nine games after signing a four-year, $20 million contract with New Orleans earlier this year.
It couldn’t come at a worse time for Peat, who is scheduled to test free agency in the spring. The 25-year-old is playing out the fifth-year option of his rookie contract, guaranteeing him $9.625 million in 2019. The sad state of offensive line play around the league means he’ll have plenty of bidders looking to pay him to start at either left tackle or left guard, and probably put him out of New Orleans’ price range even with this injury.
And injury concerns are something that has dogged Peat throughout his career: he’s never played a 16-game season, despite coming close in both 2016 and 2017 with 15 games played in each outing, though his 2017 season ended with a broken leg. He missed three games in 2018 due to a sprained ankle, concussion, and broken hand, but made the Pro Bowl as an alternate. A growing list of injuries, poor positional fits (the Saints tried him out at both tackle and guard on each side of the line before settling at left guard), and a probably-high price tag mean his days in New Orleans may be numbered.
[vertical-gallery id=22291]
