I love me some mysteries. And in my line of work, there’s nothing more mysterious than when a player has what is only called an, “undisclosed injury.” That’s when you know it’s something juicy. Such a scenario unfolded lately with Buffalo Bills RB Karlos Williams, and today I finally have enough to make a reasonable guess. Back on August 16th, it was reported that Williams had been hospitalized with an unspecified illness. The only detail that leaked out was that the issue was, “serious.” No help there. Then his injury was just vaguely called an, “illness.” Finally, it was called an, “undisclosed operation.”
At last, today we have some clarity. Or at least enough clarity for me to confidently connect some dots. Here’s what Williams said in an interview with ESPN’s Mike Rodak (who used to do awesome work on the Patriots beat circuit):
“But no, it was kind of a freak accident that kind of happened. A lot of pain. The trainers definitely took care of that. They found out what it was, got it taken care of and had a quick surgery. And actually a pretty quick recovery. I’m just happy to be back from that. But it was a very, very delicate situation.”
And then this single sentence follow that quote:
Coach Rex Ryan has previously referred to Williams’ injury as being to a “sensitive” area.
Anyone able to tell me what we’re talking about here? Yup, it was his testicles. As always, I’ll point out that I can’t prove this. But obviously, he has to be talking about his junk. At first it made me wonder if we were talking about a fusilli Jerry situation here, but the more likely culprit here is testicular torsion. This is an injury that is very painful, very critical, requires surgery, and is located in a, “sensitive area.” Fits the bill alright.
If you’re a sicko and want to read up on this injury, I can recommend this piece at Gawker. I’m the kind of guy who gets squeamish reading stuff like that, and I can remember that I thought I was going to throw up the first time I read that piece. In fact, I actually had to walk away and come back to it a few times. But in the end, it was worth it, because it helped me sleuth out this whole Karlos Williams injury.
The next question is, if I’m right about the injury, what can we expect from Karlos Williams as far as a return-to-play. Truth is, I have no idea. I have zero players with this injury. General (non-football) info I see online says that one should wait, “several weeks,” before returning to any strenuous activity. I hate terms like, “several weeks.” I can tell you that Williams has sat out the last three weeks. Whether or not that’s enough time, I don’t know. I suspect it is, but when you ask me to show my work on that guess, I’ve got nothing. I do know that with Williams being the next man up behind an injured LeSean McCoy, this will be a situation worth monitoring. The next clue we’ll get is when we see what the Bills practice reports look like next week.
