Sunday, the Raiders faced the Eagles without two of their Pro Bowl players. Tight end Darren Waller missed the game with an ankle injury and running bak Josh Jacobs was lost just before half time with a chest injury and didn’t return.
The Raiders were able to play well on offense despite the loss of Waller and Jacobs, but the concern was whether either injury would be long term and cost them any games.
Monday interim head coach Rich Bisaccia gave an update on both players.
“Josh Jacobs ended up with a chest contusion so he should be fine. We didn’t think there were any issues with him today. He had a good workout today,” said Bisaccis. “Darren Waller is going to be kind of day-to-day with treatment. Other than that there is no break or anything that we know of there. He’s going to stay around all week and get treatment.”
That’s great news for Jacobs’s prognosis, though slightly less certain for Waller. Even though fellow tight end Foster Moreau seemed pretty confident Waller’s injury was nothing to be worried about.
There was one other injury to consider. Twice during Sunday’s game left guard John Simpson went down and headed for the sideline. Bisaccia had no real update on Simpson at this time other than to say he’s walking.
“John [Simpson] right now we’re still in the evaluation process with him, but he was walking around ok,” Bisaccia continued. “We’ll see how the next few days go, he’s going to stay here as well and get treatment this week.”
The best news of all in terms of the injury situations is the bye week. Players like Waller, Jacobs, and Simpson can take this time to heal up.
Something to watch for is the status of Richie Incognito. Simpson has been starting due to Incognito going down with a calf injury in the preseason. Earlier in the season, former head coach Jon Gruden had targeted the bye week for Incognito to return to the lineup. We’ll see if Incognito indeed takes the field when the team returns to practice next week.
