DeAngelo Hall to miss 6-10 Weeks

[AJM1613]

Hall to miss time with hip injury

Head Coach Jim Mora said after Tuesday's practice that rookie starting cornerback DeAngelo Hall could potentially miss 6 to10 weeks with a slightly fractured hip he suffered during the August 28 game against the Bengals. But Mora seemed optimistic that Hall could be back in action more quickly than that.

"We’re optimistic that he’s going to be back sooner rather than later, but obviously that’s just going to depend on how he heals," Mora said after the Tuesday practice session.

"It’s called posterior lip acetabular fracture," Mora said. "It’s a little fracture in his hip...we’ve had an MRI, a CT scan, X-rays, and we sent him to a hip specialist out of town."

"But by no means is it season-ending or anything like that," Mora continued. "We’ll get him back eventually, and we’ll adjust as we go. We’re lucky to have guys like Allen Rossum and Aaron Beasley and Kevin Mathis and Tod McBride, who’s been back out here the last two days.There’s nothing you can do about injuries. You’ve just got to keep going."

That really sucks, I liked his ability and thought he would be one of the NFL's elite CBs within a year or two. Good luck to him.

How bout dem Cowboys! (a poor attempt to keep it from being moved).

[SoTex]

That's sad to hear. Not really an ATL fan, but I like to see future stars in the making develop. I think he will still end up being a good one.

[AJM1613]

That's sad to hear. Not really an ATL fan, but I like to see future stars in the making develop. I think he will still end up being a good one.

He's only twenty so he has plenty of time. ;)

[RatisBeast]

This really sucks for the Falcons and DeAngelo Hall. A bright note for ATL fans, is that he's young and has all the tools to be a top-notch elite corner in the league.

[Eskimo]

The femur can be though of consisting of 3 main parts - a long shaft (thigh bone part), a head (a hemispherical structure that forms part of the hip joint) and a neck which joins the two.

The femur or thigh bone is a long bone that all of a sudden takes a sharp turn as we near the hip. Around this turn you feel a hard bump on the outside of your leg which is called the greater trochanter which people incorrectly think of being their hip. Your anatomical hip joint is actually deeply situated in your groin.

The most common type of hip fractures are actually fractures of the upper part of the femur. The most common subtype is a fracture of the femur's neck. This is the type Bo Jackson had. What killed Jackson's career wasn't actually the fracture itself - you can come back quite strong after just a hip fracture. The hip joint has funny anatomy in that the blood supply doesn't come straight in but kind of loops its way in. When there are fractures in the neck of the femur, the blood vessels are torn and the femur's head dies (called avascular necrosis) slowly. This is what happened to Bo and he ended up needing an artificial hip.

Hall has suffered a different type of fracture. Just like the shoulder is a ball-and-socket joint, the femur is too but its movement is more constrained by tough ligaments than the shoulder. Nevertheless, the hemispherical femur's head (the ball part) connects with a socket built into the pelvis called the acetabulum. What has happened to Hall is he has chipped the back end of this acetabulum. I'm not sure how badly he has done this but given the vital importance of this structure and the huge amount of stress it goes under, it is not an injury to be taken lightly.

This injury is not terribly common. Anyone know how it happened?

[AJM1613]

Dr. Eskimo??? :cool:

[Eskimo]

Dr. Eskimo??? :cool:

Correct.

I know most people have a conceptualization of what a hip fracture is, but Hall's injury doesn't fit that framework so I just wanted to explain to you what it was. I also brought up Bo's injury (also a hip fracture) to let them know that Hall's is nothing like Bo's.

I think he should ultimately have a good recovery from this. The bad fractures usually require surgery.

I actually see quite a few of these in major traumas, which is why I'm wondering how he got it.