Pittsburgh Steelers running back James Conner only played nine total snaps in the team’s Sunday road loss to the New York Jets as he had to leave the contest in the first quarter due to a quad injury. Conner has since had an MRI on his injured quad, and he talked some about the results during his Monday evening interview on 93.7 The Fan.
“It’s my right quad,” Conner said on Monday. “It’s just a bruise. Nothing was torn in my leg or nothing like that. So, should be all right and hopefully it gets better soon.”
Conner apparently injured his right quad during what turned out to be his final carry of the game with 12:54 left in the second quarter. It was a run to right tackle that resulted in a loss of a yard. On Monday, Conner said he wasn’t exactly sure how he injured his quad on that play and that it was not bothering him any ahead of the contest.
“It was nothing that was nagging,” Conner said. “The legs were feeling good. That turf down there was kind of tough. But it’s hard to tell on film whether I took a direct blow to it or whether my foot was stuck in the ground. But my right quad is pretty bruised up and that’s what happened. It’s hard to tell from the film whether I took a shot to it or how it happened. It’s hard for me to walk right now. I can’t really extend my leg too much.”
Sunday against the Jets was Conner’s second game back after missing three games in a row with a shoulder injury. He made it clear on Monday that his latest injury is an unfortunate one and that he’s frustrated that he’s been injured so much this season.
“I don’t like being hurt and it doesn’t look good,” Conner said. “People are going to say things and all that, but it’s just something I’ve got to deal with again. It’s the nature of the position, but I’m going to try to do everything that I can to hurry up and get healthy.”
Its obvious right now that Conner doesn’t know if he’ll be able to play Sunday in the team’s regular season finale against the Baltimore Ravens. Against the Jets, he carried the football six times for 32 yards with two of those totes going for 12 and 15 yards.
Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin will address the media on Tuesday and likely label Conner as questionable for Sunday against the Ravens. In short, we’ll likely have to take yet another wait and see approach with Conner this week regarding whether he’ll ultimately be healthy enough to play on Sunday.
