Thursday night was not a good one for the knees of quarterbacks.
The Browns fear Brian Hoyer suffered a torn ACL and Bills quarterback E.J. Manuel was also forced out of the game after taking a shot to the right knee from Browns safety Tashaun Gipson. Manuel was able to walk off the field under his own power and the injury was referred to as a knee sprain after the contest, but experience with injuries initially described as knee sprains tells us that they can wind up anywhere on the spectrum from back at practice in two days to missing the entire season once more tests are done.
Buffalo will find out where on the spectrum Manuel lands on Friday. Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that Manuel will have an MRI done to assess the damage and come up with a recovery plan.
Manuel was injured as he tried to pick up extra yards on a run rather than ducking out of bounds. Coach Doug Marrone was asked after the game if he would have liked to see Manuel step out.
“I’m sure the kid wanted to score a touchdown,” Marrone said, via the Buffalo News. “I don’t think I’m ever going to, you know, tell someone not to score a touchdown. You know, EJ’s a tough kid. He took a shot. He scrambled. He made a first down. He’s trying to score a touchdown. You know, what do you say? Don’t scramble? Don’t what? Don’t score touchdowns? I mean, what do you think?”
If the MRI is clear, Manuel will likely get a chance to scramble again in the near future and see if things work out differently. If not, it will be a decision that haunts the Bills for a while.