Tank Dell Likely To Miss 2025 NFL Season With Career-Threatening Injury?

Tank Dell Likely To Miss 2025 NFL Season With Career-Threatening Injury?

We all saw it. Tank Dell caught this touchdown against the Chiefs and certainly paid the price after the fact.

CJ STROUD ➡️ TANK DELL FOR THE TOUCHDOWN#HTownMade pic.twitter.com/hlCDq9E20c

— Vendetta Media (@VendettaVSM) December 21, 2024

Since then, Aaron Wilson of KPRC 2 reported Dell tore basically everything in his knee including the ACL, dislocating his kneecap, medial collateral, lateral collateral ligaments, and damaging his meniscus.

Former NFL team doctor David Chao gave a discouraging update saying that this is career-threatening level bad.

“This is a much more difficult recovery than just an ACL, it’s a knee dislocation with three of four major ligaments torn and it’s a long road back,” Dr. Chao told KPRC 2. “Unfortunately, it has to be considered career-threatening, but we all hope not career-ending. Surgery is usually staged with this severe an injury. Whatever you can repair, you repair now, the MCL and LCL. The ACL is typically a reconstruction and you delay that until later when swelling goes down and there’s more mobility.

“A typical recovery timetable, it would be great if he could participate at some point next season, but it’s far from guaranteed he will play at any point next season. It’s similar to what happened with Browns running back Nick Chubb. They’re both knee dislocations, but not all knee dislocations are the same. This is a much more complicated surgery process than an isolated ACL and, as such, it’s going to be multiple surgeries and lots of follow-up. As much as this is a devastating injury, Nick Chubb did return to play his next season. Let’s hope for a similar good outcome for Tank Dell.”

Regardless of what reporter you seek out for this one, the message has been the same. It appears VERY unlikely that Dell will play a single snap during the 2025-26 NFL Season.

Tank Dell 2023 NFL Draft Profile

I’m going to choose my words carefully here because I don’t want to be taken out of context. Just going to do the job as best I can here. In terms Dell, we’re looking at 2026 and even when he comes back, odds are he’s not the same guy.

This was my worry about the player coming out of Houston. We knew he was tiny and the tack record of guys his size having sustained periods of success in the NFL is basically zero. It’s why I told you to fade him in fantasy before his rookie season. We’re seeing exactly that play out now. I have no idea what fantasy owners do here other than if they have access to IR spots and waiting out the storm. If there is no IR spot, good luck to you.

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