Looming over the Chicago Bears loss to the Detroit Lions was the status of the injured Leonard Floyd. As of now, the Bears got good news.
During the third quarter of the Chicago Bears Week 11 loss to the Detroit Lions, Leonard Floyd collided with teammate Kyle Fuller and was helped off of the field with a lower leg injury. It did not look good, and after the game head coach John Fox added that it was “fairly serious.”
Of course, given the Bears history over the past two seasons and where this team has been overall, it was almost fair to assume that Floyd would have been declared out for the season over the next 24 hours. However, contrary to your standard Bears injury update, the Bears actually got some good news for once.
During his Monday press conference, John Fox approached the media and let them know that he does not believe that Leonard Floyd tore his ACL.
John Fox says as of right now to #Bears knowledge Leonard Floyd did not tear his ACL but will miss some time and they are still evaluating his injury.
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) November 20, 2017
Fox did add that they are still evaluating and that Floyd is going to miss some time. However, this feels like a huge bullet dodged.
Even if Floyd does miss the next six games of the season, it really does not matter. The game reps are great, yes, but this is going to be a team that is losing motivation every week as they try to make a 3-7 record commendable over the final stretch. Missing these six games are going to be the least important six games. Heck, it could be a four-week injury, and the likely best idea would be to rest him for the final two weeks.
However, there is a huge difference between an injury that lasts six weeks, and an ACL tear that ends Floyd’s season and also requires six months of rebuilding a ligament after that.
If Floyd had torn his ACL, training camp of 2018 is almost certainly off the table. Year three, the jump year for many players would have to start without an offseason and may start with him on the sidelines in Week One. Comparing that to missing six weeks, having a full offseason, training camp and preseason is night and day in terms of the differences. So yes, the Leonard Floyd injury news is not good. No, it is not likely that he will play soon. However, overall, this could have gone a lot worse, and for that, Bears fans have to take the small win.