Dan Campbell: 'Be careful' assuming McNeill, others made injuries worse returning to play

After Alim McNeill banged knees with Aidan Hutchinson on the fourth play of the third quarter in last week's win over the New Orleans Saints, he hobbled off the field and limped straight to the bench.

Detroit Lions trainers surrounded McNeill, checked his leg and eventually cleared him to return.

McNeill was back on the field for the Lions' next defensive series, made a couple tackles on New Orleans' fourth-quarter touchdown drive, then left the game again with just over 3 minutes to play when he got "rolled up at the bottom of a pile."

McNeill downplayed the extent of his injuries after the game, saying he was "good." But an MRI on Monday revealed he sprained his knee, and the Lions placed him on injured reserve Tuesday, out for at least the next four games.

At least three other Lions players have suffered an injury in-game this season, returned to play the same day and then missed time in the following weeks. C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Kerby Joseph were injured on the opening drive of a Week 2 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, returned to play after short absences, then missed at least the next two weeks with injuries; Gardner-Johnson tore his pectoral muscle and still hasn't played again this year.

Brian Branch rolled his ankle early in the third quarter of a Week 4 win against the Packers, returned in the fourth quarter and eventually left the game a second time. He missed two weeks with a high ankle sprain.

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And offensive linemen Taylor Decker and Jonah Jackson also missed games with ankle injuries after they were initially hurt early in games but stayed on the field and played through their injuries.

In most of those cases, Lions coach Dan Campbell said he does not believe the player's same-day return to action contributed to the time he missed in the following weeks.

"I don't feel that way," Campbell said Wednesday. "Decker, maybe, cause he did, he played the whole game on that thing. I think C.J., it was done and he just willed himself to play the rest of that game. It was already torn, which we didn’t know at the time, which is hard. You do the test and he’s good, and he feels (like he can play).

"Look, there’s always going to be a little bit of that give and take. You do the best you can with it and you got to trust your doctors and you got to trust the player, too, at some point, and then use your gut on it. But I don’t think this is – this is something, if we think we’re going to set a player back, he’s out for the rest of the year, you’re going to set him back six weeks, whatever that is. No, that doesn’t make sense."

The NFL embraces a gladiator culture in many ways. It's a next-man-up business, as coaches like to say, and the best-ability-is-availability adage often applies.

Players feel pressure, both real and imagined, to be on the field for themselves and their team, and the adrenaline that helps ordinary people push through pain can be a blessing and a curse on gamedays.

Campbell has been proactive about giving players time off during training camp and in-season to rest nagging aches and pains. Lions center Frank Ragnow, for instance, sits out one practice a week most weeks as a maintenance day for his degenerative toe.

The Lions also have held players (Amon-Ra St. Brown, Alex Anzalone) out of games with injuries they could have tried to play through in order to reduce the risk of an extended absence.

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Campbell said it's a leap to suggest most players who returned to action made their injury worse and he cautioned to "be careful on that assumption" even as he acknowledged the team sometimes has to protect players from themselves with in-game injury situations.

"There’s a difference between (some of these injuries)," he said. "You get some of these you think you’re going to make them worse. Like, these can become significant if ... It’s not worth it. But if these are things (where the body part is) stable, it’s a pain issue. Now, whether you can deal with it or not, that’s up to the player. But I think those are a little bit different.

"And if it’s, look, it’s not going to get worse, he’s going to have to deal with pain, he wants to go back in, I’m all for it. But if we feel like, man, we could put this player behind and relative to the production we’re going to get out of him being less than 100%, it’s probably not worth it. Then, yeah, we don’t want to do that to our guys."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Dan Campbell defends Detroit Lions' handling of injured players