The Houston Texans originally stated that quarterback Deshaun Watson tore his ACL during practice on Thursday, but there is new thinking that indicates that the seeds for that injury were planted earlier than that.
After reviewing video from the Texans’ loss to the Seattle Seahawks last Sunday, doctors and trainers now believe that Watson suffered an initial knee injury in the second half of the game after being sideswiped by Seattle’s Frank Clark.
Doctors have not even ruled out that the ACL tear happened there, even though Watson finished the game playing at a high level.
“I can’t be 100 percent sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” one doctor told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. “Something happened as he grabbed his knee. And if you look at it in slow motion, one mechanism of injury is there.”
The alternative theory is that something happened to the knee on the play that made it more vulnerable to a major injury later on, which is more or less what led to Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill’s ACL issues.
Watson went down without contact during Thursday’s practice. It seems increasingly likely, though, that the ACL tear was only a matter of time after Sunday’s game — if it hadn’t happened already.
