Jamaal Charles Injury Update: Chiefs’ Star RB is Day to Day
Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
Jamaal Charles hurt himself yesterday at Chiefs camp in St Joseph, Mo.
Speculation was rampant when he was driven away on the cart, and even though he had walked off the field on his own power, Chiefs Kingdom was anxious, to say the least.
Many overreacted, but eventually it came out that the X-ray was negative and Charles just had a foot strain.
Today, at camp, head athletic trainer Rick Burkholder addressed the media on the situation. Here’s an excerpt:
"There’s a tendon that attaches right at that spot and that’s what is sore right now. That’s why they call it a strain and today he is sore up his leg, which is natural and we expected to see that this morning. He is literally day to day. The other side of his foot where people which speculating this or that, he doesn’t have anything wrong. We had him see two orthopedic surgeons and everybody is on the same page. We agree that he has a mild foot strain, and he is day to day. He could be on the practice field tomorrow. He’s day to day and when we say day to day we literally mean day to day."
In case you didn’t get the point Burkholder was trying to make there, Charles is going to be day to day.
For the casual football fan, that essentially means that tomorrow Charles could wake up feeling like a million bucks and strap ’em up. On the flip side, he could still feel a bit sore and sit out again.
It’s usually the serious injuries that get a time frame put on them, and that’s usually because the doctors knows how long said injury takes to heal. In Charles’ case, there’s not really an injury to heal—just soreness.
Again, for the casual football fan, that’s a good thing.
As a coach, I like to use coaching sayings. Here’s another one that we like to use:
“Are you hurt, or are you injured?”
There’s a big difference between the two. Hurt means that you’re banged up but can still play. There’s a fine line between hurt and injured, but I would say the difference is that when you’re hurt, you can go out there without having to worry about long-term impact.
When you’re injured, even moving the wrong way can impact things in the long run.
Charles is obviously just hurt and not injured, thus the day to day tag.
Putting two and two together, that likely means there won’t be any long-term implications from this saga, and we’ll see him on the field soon enough for the Chiefs.
Note: Quotes via the Chiefs Communications press release.