The Arizona Cardinals aren’t revealing anything about the specifics of the right knee injury suffered by right tackle Jonah Williams, but Dr. David Chao (sicscore.com; @ProFootballDoc) believes there is “worry for patella subluxation (partial dislocation). Had the problem before. Also, worry is this time right knee worse (than subluxation) and will need surgery like (his) left knee.”
Also problematic is that the injury is to his outside leg.
If it is worse, Chao believes the best-case scenario is that Williams will miss 6-to-8 weeks, but that he won’t play again this season if surgery is necessary.
During the 2022 season while with the Cincinnati Bengals, Williams suffered a subluxation in his right knee in Week 5 against the Baltimore Ravens, but didn’t miss any games or snaps until the postseason.
In a playoff game three months later, also against the Ravens, Williams suffered what turned out to be a dislocated kneecap with a complete shift which required surgery. He was cleared for training camp six months later.
The surgery was a patellofemoral ligament reconstruction where the inside part of the kneecap was attached to the femur. The medial patellofemoral ligament (MPFL) is the ligament that produces patella stability.
Even if the current injury is only a subluxation, there is more of a chance that a dislocation will occur because of the previous subluxation in the same knee and that he had a dislocation in his other knee.
Chao, who was the San Diego Chargers team physician for 17 years and appears regularly on SiriusXM NFL Radio, doesn’t have access to tests done on Williams, but his experience in the NFL allows him to provide credible opinions by viewing video of injuries and the knowledge he has of them.
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