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Originally Posted by AnonEmouse
1) His ribs are still healing up. That much is obvious from the treatment on the side line every game since.
2) He had a bad cut on his hand during the game. It's unsurprising if that impacted his grip and thus his throwing after he got hurt.
Neither injury should need extensive healing with exclusion from training. If the medics didn't think he could play with either/both injuries, Mariota would have been out there. AP and DQ are not going to risk a franchise QB unnecessarily in the middle of a rebuild season, even if we're doing unexpectedly well. They're not idiots. Players get banged up, its football, and yes it does affect their play. He's getting 3 or 4 good days rest and treatment now before going back into training. I expect him to be in much better playing shape 8 days from now. If they feel he needs more healing time, now we have the opportunity, expect to see him held out of or on light training until Wednesday or Thursday. Something tells me he'll be back a practice as normal, first session. And he'll be fine.
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Medics/trainers often clear players as long as the player(s) say they're okay or they can play through the pain. Heck, we saw it with RG3 when he was cleared by team personnel (medics and trainers), as well as by Dr. Andrews. It was transparent RG3 was hurt in our final two regular season games that year versus the Eagles and Cowboys. You could visibly see on read options as he was practically dragging his injured leg whenever he kept the ball. It was only a matter of time before he seriously injured himself and, unfortunately, it occurred. Again, he too was cleared to play.
I suspect Daniels is telling the coaching staff and medics/trainers that he can functionally play through the pain. My eyes is telling me that isn't the case. He and Quinn are BS'in everyone, including themselves, by stating Daniels' injury isn't affecting him. I and everyone else saw him pre-injury, and he ain't the same.
I had suspicions he reinjured himself, if he wasn't already injured, versus Pittsburgh last Sunday. Here's the play in particular when I knew for sure he was injured.... The last play of the 3rd quarter when Cam Heyward sacked Daniels. Now, Heyward did get up on Daniels sort of quickly, but I'm rather confident pre-injured Daniels would've recognized it a bit sooner and avoided Heyward. Daniels looked somewhat stiff and slow to react (he's a quick twitch player), and I said to myself, "Something looks off, and I sense his ribs are affecting his movement." But I didn't wanna believe that was the case. I think a couple of Daniels' misses last Sunday was more about him being injured more so than the Steelers' D rushing him into quicker decisions. Thursday night only reaffirmed what I thought last Sunday. A healthy Daniels would've rocked the Eagles, after all those early empty possessions, had he been healthy. I'm confident in saying that much. I also think we would've beaten the Steelers with a healthy Daniels. No one will convince me differently.
The coaching staff blew the game (Thursday night), and Daniels should've been pulled in favor of Mariota.