Local doc: If C.J. Uzomah’s knee is stable and strong, he should be able to play

“It tells me it’s while significant, it’s on the more mild side of the spectrum,” said Busam, who’s not Uzomah’s treating physician. He said the team’s medical team will work to ensure inflammation is down, the knee is structurally sound, his leg muscles are strong, and has full range of motion. Then they’ll be able to protect the knee “to allow him to do the things he wants to do.”

Uzomah is an important part of the Bengals’ offense, and offensive coordinator Brian Callahan told the media earlier this week if the tight end is not available to play, “we’d have to work around and guys are gonna have to step up ... but yeah, he means the world to our offense, the world to our team as a leader.”

During the first quarter AFC Championship game on Jan. 30 against the Kansas City Chiefs, Uzomah suffered a left knee injury. He landed awkwardly after he jumped to catch a Joe Burrow pass. He hopped off the field, putting no weight on his injured leg. He was assessed in the medical tent on the sideline before being carted off to the locker room for further assessment.

It was determined he sprained his medial collateral ligament, or MCL, which Busam said is “a really important stabilizer” on the inside part of the knee, protecting the knee from bending too far to the inside.

Uzomah’s knee essentially caved in as his foot slipped out, which is when the MCL was injured.

“That’s a really important ligament so when you run down the field and you cut and pivot, you don’t want your knee to collapse to the inside. So when that ligament is injured, it allows your knee to collapse more than it should, and it puts you at risk of falling over or putting yourself at risk for injuring yourself further.”

The reason Busam’s hopeful for Uzomah’s prognosis is it’s “always remarkable” how the bodies of high-level athletes, like the Cincinnati Bengals and FC Cincinnati players, can handle so much.

“It’s a very sobering thing to recall how physically superior these young men are when compared to the general population,” he said. “Their bodies can do things that just are unequivocally not natural. So these injuries sometimes can look very significant and not be as bad as they appear, even on super slow motion, honed-down high-resolution video.”

The injury is an isolated MCL sprain, meaning another ligament or connected part of the knee was not injured. Busam said as long as he’s healthy to play, it’s unlikely to impact his future performance. That’s backed by a 2018 study out of the NFL combine that showed 13% of players had an isolated MCL injury and “had no negative impact on an athlete’s NFL performance.”

Uzomah will figuratively live in the training room until he’s medically cleared. Busam said the only job these players have is to play, and when they’re rehabilitating an injury, their only job is to get better. This means they can heal a lot faster than the average person, especially when given vast medical resources and as many training hours needed to be ready to play, something the average person has access to but wouldn’t be able to afford.

“He’s got great hands, he’s really strong, he runs fast, he knows the plays. But if you can’t do your job, you can’t play,” Busam said. “If he can do his job, and they can protect his knee to the point he says, ‘I feel safe, and I feel effective,’ then you can go out and do things you need to do.”