One Week to Seven Months?

Glad he's ok

It looks like Jason Taylor's calf injury was worse than expected and that he may be out longer than expected. Jason was kicked in the calf during the Cardinals game Sunday, went out a few plays and came back with a sleeve on his calf. He continued to have pain and at around 3am Monday morning went to the hospital.

After initially characterizing the surgery as emergency but no big deal, more news on Jason's compartmental syndrome need for surgery, stat came out last night. Being a professional athlete and having some experience with body maintenance Jason wanted a second opinion the next day, Monday.

The team got him on the horn with James Andrews, surgeon to the world of professional athletes and he said get the fuck in there and have the procedure. So he did.

The condition he had, compartment syndrome, is the choking of blood vessels by pressure within a muscle group in the arm or leg. Jason was kicked and it must have opened a vessel, which normally would just create a bruise. In this case it was creating pressure that could have eventually stopped blood flow below the injury, leading eventually to gangrene and possibly death though it is a bit of a stretch to say he almost died but not that it was career threatening.

He went ahead and had the 20 minute procedure at Arlington County Hospital, the place where all three of my kids were born, and I saw video of him on crutches last night on CBS TV channel 9 in Washington.

Brett Haber was there reporting that Jason could be out as long as seven months with recovery, though it could be as short as one week. That seems like a long window which tends to indicate the team and the doctors need to see some early signs of recovery before they can lay down a better marker on Jason's return, it is a fairly rare injury.

That means get ready to see more of Demetric Evans on run downs and Chris Wilson on passing downs against the Cowboys. Jason had a great two games against the Saints and Cardinals, batting three Kurt Warner passes last Sunday, let us hope he gets well soon and gets back on the field.

Afternoon update: newcomer Dano's Redskins has a good take.

Jason Taylor: Getty Images from here.