Injuries to Darren McFadden, Marcel Reece not considered serious

The Raiders suffered two significant injuries in their loss to the Redskins Sunday. They lost both starting running back Darren McFadden and Pro Bowl starting fullback, Marcel Reece.

Reece left the game with a knee injury in the second quarter and was immediately ruled out for the remainder of the game. The team would have some trouble replacing Reece in the lineup so his loss is a sizable one. Monday, Reece had an MRI done on his knee and the results came back negative. He has no major damage and it is considered to be only a sprain. No timetable yet for his return.

McFadden left around the same time and initially his return was questionable with a hamstring injury. Though there was no update during the game, after half time, he was on the sideline in street clothes so it was obvious he was not returning to the game.

Monday the news came out that McFadden's hamstring injury was rumored to be a mild one and he is not expected to be out an extended period of time. Dennis Allen wouldn't get into labeling the severity of the injury, however.

"I wouldn't get in to characterizing whether it's minor, major or indifferent," said Allen. "I mean, he's got a hamstring and I don't expect him to be out for a long time, but we'll see how he responds too. It's one day after the game."

Come Tuesday, Marcel Reece, had his weekly interview on Bay Area radio station, 95.7 The Game where he talked about how the injury occurred and his status.

"Basically just took a direct hit on the knee and continued to try to play and I just wasn't myself," Reece said of how the injury occurred. "I wanted to continue to play but the doctor wouldn't allow me to. I trust him and it was a good call I guess. I didn't think so at the time, I just wanted to play football and help my team.

"I feel much better than I did initially. And I feel blessed to get a negative MRI so it was a positive to get that result. Just looking and basically treatment of it and getting back on the field.

"We've only been out from the game two days. I've just been treating it like crazy all of Sunday night and yesterday trying to figure out actually what was going on. . . Probably here in a couple hours, I'll have a meeting with DA and see where he stands on the situation."

From the sounds of both injuries, it would appear very unlikely either Reece or McFadden will be available for next week's game when the San Diego Chargers come to Oakland. I wouldn't expect either to be out more than a couple weeks at most.

Then again, past experience tells us that even good news is sometimes misleading. After all, Jared Veldheer's MRI on his tricep came back negative before he was eventually placed on partial season injured reserve. Darren McFadden's lis franc injury from two seasons ago was not discovered initially either and had him out most of the season.

As of now, things look positive. So, let's go with what knowledge we do have.

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