The Raiders won the battle Sunday against the Jaguars but they took what could be a major casualty along the way. Starting strong safety Tyvon Branch left the game with an ankle injury in the first half and didn't return.
Following the game, the prognosis wasn't a good one from head coach Dennis Allen.
"Tyvon Branch injured his ankle," said Allen. "That looks to be a significant injury. We'll find out more later."
Replacing Branch in the lineup was Brandian Ross with Usama Young also coming in to play some in relief as well.
In the process, Usama Young was sent on several blitzes resulting in two sacks for the reserve safety on the day.
"[Usama Young] is a guy that I've got a lot of knowledge of and a lot of experience with," said Allen. "We said from the very beginning that we felt good about our safety position, that we had some depth there, that we had some guys that could play safety in the NFL, and so any time you have a guy that goes down you've got to have some other guys to step up and I thought he did a nice job stepping up today as well as Brandian Ross today."
"It's tough man." said Usama Young of Branch's injury. "He's a great player. I talked to him at the half. You never want to see one of your guys go down. I'm going to hit him up as soon as I get up out of here; hopefully he's not too bad, but a player like that always hurts. He's been playing at a high level for a while and with that, somebody's got to step up."
Make no mistake, losing Branch for any extended period of time would be a huge loss for the Raiders. He is one of the best players on the team and teamed up with Charles Woodson gives the Raiders one of the bets safety tandems in the league.
As Allen says, we will know more soon. Hopefully Monday.
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